Vertical Vibration of a Lightweight Metro Car

The vertical dynamic response of a lightweight metro car considering elastic vibration has been investigated in this paper. The lightweight metro carbody is modeled as a simple uniform elastic Euler-Bernoulli beam with free ends, and taking into account the inertia, internal viscosity and bending rigidity. Only the first bending mode of car body is included in the analytic analysis which is adequate for the research. Numerical calculations are preformed to illustrate the dynamic acceleration response of the metro car. It is found that vibration in the elastic model is bigger than in the rigid one, which is close to the real condition, and that viscoelastic layers can be pasted on the outside sheathing of the car body to increase the internal damping which can be a useful measure for enhancing the riding comfort of a lightweight car body.