ADAMS/Rail

What's New

Possibility of using variable rail profiles

Variable rail profiles, independent for left and right rail, can be specified in this release of ADAMS/Rail. The rail profile sections must be specified as separate PRM files in the rail configuration matrix in the appropriate section of the TRK file, each one corresponding to a different longitudinal coordinate along the rail. The rail profiles do not need to be described with the same number of points, since they will all be re-sampled using the number of points of the first profile. The evolution of the rail profiles along X is then described through a spline approximation.

This feature is only supported by the WRGEN wheel/rail contact element and the TRK_4 track file format. Additionally, the layout of two separate guiding rails, described in the same way as the two rails, can be specified. This feature allows the detailed description of track switches. Each rail is connected to the guiding rail through a flexible connection, whose stiffness and damping parameters you can specify in a property file where you can also separately activate the degrees of freedom between rail and guiding rail.

The track graphic correctly displays the track layout with rails and backrails, which will not move with respect to each other during the animation.

Possibility of using variable wheel profiles and variable wheel radius

Variable wheel profiles, independent for each wheel, can be specified in this version of ADAMS/Rail. The wheel profile sections must be specified as separate PRM files in the wheel configuration matrix in the appropriate section of the WPF file, each one corresponding to a different angular coordinate around the wheel (between 0° and 360°). The wheel profiles do not need to be described with the same number of points, because they will all be re-sampled using the number of points of the first profile. The angular evolution of the wheel profiles is then described through a spline approximation. This feature is only supported by the WRGEN wheel/rail contact element and the WPF_2 wheel file format. This feature can be used to accurately describe wheel out-of-round defects, such as wheel flats.

You can also specify a variable wheel radius for different values of the angular coordinate about the wheel. This is another way of describing wheel flats without needing to specify different wheel profiles.

The wheel/wheelset graphic correctly displays the wheel layout. However, you must regenerate the graphic every time you introduce a change in the wheel profile layout.

Equivalent conicity plots

The graphical RSGEO functionality has been enhanced to allow the display of equivalent conicity plots. You can now automatically calculate the evolution of the quasi-linear contact parameters (equivalent conicity, contact angle parameter, and roll angle parameter) with the change of the wheel/rail lateral displacement, for a given pair of wheel/rail profiles.

Possibility of computing the sliding mean of user-specified signal

A new dialog box has been provided in the Comfort Toolkit dialog boxes that allows you to calculate the sliding mean of a user-specified result set component (as a function of time). This allows for a more flexible use of the comfort toolkit calculation procedures implemented in ADAMS/Rail.

Online documentation in HTML format

The ADAMS/Rail documentation has been converted to an online, searchable HTML format. The guide, Getting Started Using ADAMS/Rail is available in PDF format and is accessible through your preferred Web browser.

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Changes

Possibility to reference the rail and wheel profile files into the TRK and WPF file storing the PRM files into an additional table

A new track file format (TRK_4) has been introduced to enable you to directly reference the rail profile names from within the track file. You can reference the PRM files, containing the rail profile points, from within the track file using their complete path or using a relative path, such as &const\UIC60_150.PRM, where the symbol "&" is replaced with a string containing the path name where the PRM profiles can be found. You can also use subdirectories. The same has been implemented in the case of the wheel profile for the WPF file (format WPF_2).

We implemented this feature to allow you to effectively organize the PRM files into directories and reference them from within the TRK file. This is particularly useful when dealing with track/wheel layouts with variable profiles, to reduce the amount of data being stored in the TRK and WPF files.

Bushing elements compatible with preload calculation

The ADAMS/Rail bushing elements can now be taken into account when calculating the vehicle assembly preloads. An additional text box in the preload analysis dialog box lets you select user-specified bushings to be taken into account in the preload calculation procedure. Alternatively, you can automatically select all bushings. This feature enables you to automatically calculate preloads in bushing elements used, for example, to suspend motor parts in the complete assembly.

Track flexibility model updated

The track flexibility model available in ADAMS/Rail has been updated. The reaction forces exchanged between wheel and rail are now applied on the wheel/rail contact dummy parts sliding along the rails.

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Issues resolved

36518
A problem with rail-profile approximation, introduced with the 12.0 ADAMS/Rail Service Pack (APN-120-183), has been resolved. The problem was related to an incorrect update of the rail-profile approximation spline coefficients, occurring when some points of the rail profiles are removed from the profile itself because a portion of the rotated rail profile becomes singular.

38289
The centerline request user-defined element (UDE) now works correctly and ADAMS/Solver should no longer crash.

38255
The ADAMS/Rail simulation script is no longer removed from the database when a dynamic analysis is submitted. This makes the use of ADAMS/Rail with ADAMS/Insight easier, because the simulation script required for the ADAMS/Insight export command is already available.

40252
Running a stability analysis at different speeds using the closed- or open-loop standard tool: the results are now the same as the results of single stability analyses submitted singularly, related to the same model and same velocity. The small differences in resulting modes, experienced with previous ADAMS/Rail releases, were related to a somewhat inaccurate model re-initialization at the beginning of each stability analysis.

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Known issues

Please go to the Knowledge Base to read all of the Known Issues for ADAMS/Rail 2003

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Revised: 09/06/05