Effects of Contact Nonlinearities on the Vibration Response of Roller Coaster Trains Along Spatial Trajectories

EasyChair Preprint 13470

Abstract

The occurrence of vibrations during a roller coaster ride can significantly impact the overall experience and contribute to material fatigue. Despite its relevance, understanding the root causes or accurately predicting these vibrations remains an unresolved challenge, introducing an element of unpredictability into the design process. In spite of improvements in track quality, relevant vibration levels are still present in modern roller coasters. The elasticity of the train components leading to oscillations due to the changing spatial trajectory and the excitation through rail irregularities are commonly regarded to simulate vibrations in roller coaster systems. Here, the impact of contact nonlinearities on the vibration response of these systems, accounting for friction forces owing to wheel-rail creepage –leading to transient self-excited oscillations– and the frequency modulation of the rigid modes of vibration, is studied. The results indicate that these nonlinearities play a central role in predicting the vibration spectrum in roller coaster systems, not captured by prevailing simpler multi-degree-of-freedom linear oscillator models. These findings are corroborated against real measurements.

Keyphrases: nonlinear contact, roller coasters, vibrations

@booklet{EasyChair:13470,
  author    = {Marc Guillem Zamora Agustí and Andrés Kecskeméthy and Jurnan Schilder},
  title     = {Effects of Contact Nonlinearities on the Vibration Response of Roller Coaster Trains Along Spatial Trajectories},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 13470},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2024}}