ADAMS/Rail Release Notes

Enhancements to Switch Description

You can now separately specify the rail and guiding rail IDs in the rail configuration matrix of the TRK file, which allows profiles for rail and guiding rail to be defined at different sections.

We have increased the maximum number of points allowed for profile description through the use of dynamic memory allocation for profile data storage. An upper limit to the size of a profile (which can be easily increased) is still present and is currently set at 2000 points. If you are using multiple rail profiles (such as when describing a track switch) all profiles are resampled to have the same number of points of the first profile.

We have added a parameter in the TRK file to specify the reference position of the track switch along the track (similar to the inactive length parameter). This parameter tracks the property file (SWITCH_OFFSET), specifying the (positive or negative) offset of the switch with respect to the position specified in the rail configuration matrices. We added the new parameter to the GLOBAL block of the TRK file.

Example:

$---------------------------------------------GLOBAL
[GLOBAL]
TOTAL_LENGTH = 120.0
CANT_MODE = 'CENTER'
IRREGULARITIES = 'NO'
SWITCH_OFFSET = 5.0

You can now activate both track/ground and rail/guiding rail flexibility. This is an important feature that enables ADAMS/Rail to take into account the track/ground and the rail/guiding rail flexibility, especially in the lateral direction.

Customizing Wheel/Rail Contact Elements

The wheel/rail contact properties in ADAMS/Rail are now contained in a user-defined element (UDE) and not generated by a C function. The new test rig based on a UDE description will provide more flexibility to the test-rig environment, allowing you to switch from dynamic contact description to the poster/roller test rig without the need to re-assemble the model.

Property Files Unit Independence. [experimental feature]

Unit independence has been implemented for all ADAMS/Rail-specific property files: track property file (*.trk), wheel property files (*.wpf), contact configuration file (*.ccf), wheel and rail profile property files (*.wpr and *.rpr), rail and guiding rail flexibility configuration files (*.frp and *.grp).

Documentation Enhancements

ADAMS/Rail Documentation Improvements

Added descriptions of the wheel/rail contact requests.

Overall Documentation Improvements

For MSC.ADAMS 2005, we've made improvements to the MSC.ADAMS help:

• Added global search so you can search across the entire set of MSC.ADAMS help. To access the global search, do one of the following:

  • At the top of the help, select Switch Products, and then select the Search tab.

  • In any product, select the Search tab, and then in the window that appears, select Global Search.

  Note that the global search does not include any .pdfs (including getting started guides and ADAMS/Driver).

• Removed any hardcoding of font sizes so you can scale the text of the help to any size. Please note that many of the equations do not scale because they are images, and the help looks the best when viewed with medium (or 100%). In addition, your browser will print the text the same size as it is displayed.

• Documented many of the environment variables for the products to help customize your session. The environment variables are for ADAMS/Controls, ADAMS/Durability, ADAMS/Flex, ADAMS/Solver, ADAMS/View, and the template-based products (ADAMS/Aircraft, ADAMS/Car, ADAMS/Driveline, ADAMS/Rail). For more information, see the Running and Configuring help.

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38289

The use of the centerline request element was thought to lead to an ADAMS/Solver crash. This has been identified as user misunderstanding.

36888

The Wz Sperling computation now produces the correct results for acceleration results related to curved tracks. The procedure now correctly takes into account the base line shift correction for computing lateral ride index (regardless of the method) and, therefore, furnishes correct results, even when the vehicle is negotiating a curved track.

44844

You can now use any type of length units in the RPR files (rail profile property files), according to the unit used for the profile measurement.

Copyright © 2004 MSC.Software Corporation. All rights reserved.