Influence of wind and rain environment on operational safety of intercity train running on the viaduct
International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow
ISSN: 0961-5539
Article publication date: 28 March 2023
Issue publication date: 24 April 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Based on the aerodynamic loads and dynamic performances of trains, this study aims to investigate the effect of crosswinds and raindrops on intercity trains operating on viaducts to ensure the safe operation of intercity railways in metropolitan areas.
Design/methodology/approach
An approach coupled with the Euler multiphase model as well as the standard k-ɛ turbulence model is used to investigate the coupled flow feature surrounding trains and viaducts, including airflow and raindrops, and the numerical results are validated with those of the wind tunnel test. Additionally, the train’s dynamic response and the operating safety region in different crosswind speeds and rainfall is investigated based on train’s aerodynamic loads and the train wheel–rail dynamics simulation.
Findings
The aerodynamic loads of trains at varying running speeds exhibit an increasing trend as the increase of wind speed and rainfall intensity. The motion of raindrop particles demonstrates a significant similarity with the airflow in wind and rain environments, as a result of the dominance of airflow and the supplementary impacts of droplets. As the train’s operating speed ranged between 120 and 200 km/h and within a rainfall range of 20–100 mm/h, the safe operating region of trains decreased by 0.56%–7.03%, compared with the no-rain condition (0 mm/h).
Originality/value
The impact of crosswind speeds and rainfall on the train’s aerodynamic safety is studied, including the flow feature of crosswind and different particle-sized raindrops around the train and viaduct, aerodynamic loads coefficients suffered by the intercity train as well as the operating safety region of intercity trains on the viaduct.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant numbers 52002290 and 52202426], Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province [Grant number 2022A1515010011], Fundamental Science and Technology Projects of Jiangmen [Grant numbers 2019JC01021 and 2021030102780006189] and Hong Kong and Macau Joint Research and Development Fund of Wuyi University [Grant number 2019WGALH17].
Declaration of competing interest: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Citation
Zeng, G.-Z., Li, Z.-W., Huang, S. and Chen, Z.-W. (2023), "Influence of wind and rain environment on operational safety of intercity train running on the viaduct", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 1584-1608. https://doi.org/10.1108/HFF-12-2022-0693
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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