Analysis of wheelset steering angle of active steering bogie with variation of wheel radius and vehicle weight

Conventional railroad vehicles have problems such as excessive noise and wear between wheels and rails due to passive steering function when passing along curved tracks. The active steering bogie uses active steering sensors to measure the radius of curvature of the curved track in real time, and aligns the wheelsets with the curved track using the active steering actuators. If the wheel diameter changes or the car weight changes, the performance of the active steering sensors and actuators is influenced, as is the resultant steering performance. Thus, the performance of the wheelset steering angle according to wheel diameter variation and car weight variation was analyzed. It turned out that the error was dramatically reduced by the way of initial installation of active steering sensors and actuators. In order to verify the analysis results, a test vehicle was manufactured and operated on actual track. The steering angle performance was evaluated and showed a maximum error of 6.4%.