TY - JOUR AB - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a new random vibration-based assessment method for coupled vehicle-track systems with uncertain parameters when subjected to random track irregularity.Design/methodology/approach The uncertain parameters of vehicle are described as bounded random variables. The track is regarded as an infinite periodic structure, and the dynamic equations of the coupled vehicle-track system, under mixed physical coordinates and symplectic dual coordinates, are established through wheel-rail coupling relationships. The random track irregularities at the wheel-rail contact points are converted to a series of deterministic harmonic excitations with phase lag by using the pseudo excitation method. Based on the polynomial chaos expansion of the pseudo response, a chaos expanded pseudo equation is derived, leading to the combined hybrid pseudo excitation method - polynomial chaos expansion methodFindings The impact of uncertainty propagation on the random vibration analysis is assessed efficiently. According to GB5599-85, the reliability analysis for the stability index is implemented, which can grade the comfort level by the probability. Comparing to the deterministic analysis, it turns out that neglect of the parameter uncertainty will lead to potentially risky analysis results.Originality/value The proposed method is compared with Monte Carlo simulations, achieving good agreement. It is an effective means for random vibration analysis of uncertain coupled vehicle-track systems and has good engineering practicality VL - 33 IS - 2 SN - 0264-4401 DO - 10.1108/EC-01-2015-0009 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/EC-01-2015-0009 AU - Xiang Pan AU - Zhao Yan AU - Lin Jiahao AU - Kennedy D AU - Williams Fred W ED - D R J Owen PY - 2016 Y1 - 2016/01/01 TI - Random vibration analysis for coupled vehicle-track systems with uncertain parameters T2 - Engineering Computations PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited Y2 - 2024/04/18 ER -