Heavy haul locomotive suspension behaviour under bogie and individual wheelset traction control strategies

The design of running gears is a complex and problematic issue, and the appropriateness of the design is directly affects the technical and economic effectiveness of locomotives. The main difficulties for the development or modernisation of running gears arise due to the fact that a process involving expert multidisciplinary knowledge is essential. The paper provides the comparison results for axle load distribution dependant on traction and stiffness parameters for a locomotive running under traction for a dry friction condition on straight track, and also results describing curving performance. The running modes without traction and with maximum tractive effort have also been taken into consideration for the curve performance study, and some results and discussion are provided.