Optimization of suspension parameters on ride quality of railway passenger vehicles

Suspension parameters of railway vehicles have an important influence to ride quality and ride comfort of vehicles. In order to analyze the influence of vehicle suspension system on ride quality of vehicles, a 6 freedom degree vertical dynamics model is established with primary and secondary suspension of vehicle. On this basis, the mathematic model of optimum design on vehicle suspension parameters is established considering stiffness and damping of primary and secondary suspension as optimum design variables. By coordinate rotation method combined with the Matlab software, vehicle suspension parameters are calculated and optimized. It is shown that ride quality index of the vehicle are decreased about 20%, ride quality of vehicles is obviously improved. The work finished in the paper provides a new method for the reasonable selection of vertical suspension parameters for railway passenger vehicles.