A VEHICLE/TRACK CO-SIMULATION MODEL USING EASYDYN

In the railway domain, studies have been undertaken on the attenuation of vibrations transmitted to the vehicle in order to improve the comfort of the passengers. However, a slight variation in the stiffness and damping characteristics of the train constitutive parts can considerably change the amount of energy transmitted to the soil in terms of vibrations. To predict those ground-borne vibrations generated by the vehicle moving along the track that could affect or disturb the surrounding environment, a relevant option would be to build a numerical model that simulates the passage of a vehicle on a track by coupling a multibody modeling of the train with a finite element modeling of the soil using co-simulation techniques. However the location where the model has to be split remains uncertain and then the border between the multibody and the finite element parts must be determined. The aim of this paper is to emphasize the possibility to perform co-simulation between two or more subsystems using an in-house C++ library package called EasyDyn. Using its co-simulation capabilities, the recoupling of a vehicle, that can be modeled using the minimal coordinates approach in multibody systems and a track modeled using a finite element representation of the rail and sleepers, will be discussed.