Impact of suspension component modelling on the accuracy of rail vehicle dynamics simulation

Over the years, the virtual reality together with numerical simulations have become more and more important in railway engineering, allowing to easily investigate the vehicle dynamics avoiding costly experimental campaign. On the basis of that, at the present railway operators and system integrators are thinking of partially replacing physical testing by virtual testing based on validated mathematical models and reliable numerical procedures. In this paper the accuracy of railway mathematical model is investigated with respect to its influence in the homologation procedure. Particular attention is dedicated to the impact that different degree of modelling of suspension component has on the evaluation of the vehicle dynamics both in tangent track and in curve.