Effects of geometric track irregularities on vehicle dynamic behaviour when running through a turnout

Railway vehicle dynamics is strongly affected by track irregularities, which can influence the safety and the running behaviour of the vehicle. The EN 13848-5:2017 standard provides the limits of track irregularities for standard track but does not states specific restrictions for switches and crossings. Furthermore, since turnouts have a limited length, their track geometric irregularities cannot be accurately described by stochastic functions usually adopted for railway vehicle dynamics simulations. Nevertheless, irregularities in railway turnouts, related to the non-uniform stiffness of the track support and to the variation of the rail profiles along the longitudinal direction should be considered in dynamic simulations, as they can generate large dynamic loads, strongly affecting the vehicle dynamics and running stability. The aim of the paper is to expand the Switches and Crossing benchmark exercise analysing the effect of several kinds of irregularity with different wavelengths and amplitudes on a complete turnout on the main quantities related to the vehicle dynamics. The influence of each defect on each quantity is estimated through a post-processing sensitivity analysis based on power spectral density calculation. This sensitivity analysis is hence used to combine different types of defects in order to detect irregularity combinations that could compromise running safety.