News Release

No. 201605 July 21, 2016

RTRI Develops a New-Type Bogie

for Reducing the Risk of Derailment

RTRI developed a new-type bogie in order to enhance the running safety of conventional line
trains. The newly-developed bogie is equipped with a mechanism to prevent wheel load loss
and to reduce lateral force, and is currently undergoing running tests to confirm its
performance and durability at the MIHARA Test Center of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.,
toward commercial application.

A flange-climbing derailment, one of the derailment phenomena for a railway vehicle, is likely to occur
when the lateral force against rail extremely increases and, at the same time, the wheel load, a force
pressing wheels downward onto rail, decreases. As an indicator to assess the safety against the
flange-climbing derailment, the quotient of lateral force divided by wheel load, what we call “derailment
coefficient,” has been used. Since 2011, RTRI has been working for the development of the new bogie in
order to get rid of flange-climbing derailments.

This newly-developed bogie has a mechanism to rotate side beams of a bogie around a cross beam.
With this mechanism, not only the wheels but the entire bogie frame can negotiate the horizontal torsion
of rails and prevent loss of wheel load (Figure 1). Moreover, its axles can be steered by an actuator on
curves and reduce the lateral force by reducing the attack angle of wheels against rail (Fig.2: Steering
assistance mechanism).

Since May 2016, at the test track of the MIHARA Test Center of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., we
have been conducting running tests of a test vehicle equipped with the new-type bogie in order to confirm
its performance and durability. As the result of these tests, it has been confirmed that the rate of wheel
load loss for this bogie is roughly 30 % smaller than that on ordinary types of bogies (Fig.3). We have also
confirmed that, if the steering assistance function works, the lateral force is reduced to 1/2 or 1/3 on 120
m-radius curves (Fig. 4). As the result, it has been confirmed that the average derailment coefficient of
this bogie is approximately half the value of the bogies with ordinary structures, which means the safety
against flange-climbing derailment has been greatly improved (Fig.5). The targeted running distance of
the durability tests prior to commercial operation is 5,000 km and the tests will be completed on July 27,
this year.

Part of this project has been implemented with the grant for railway technical development provided by
Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
News Release
No. 201605 July 21, 2016

Wheel load maintaining

mechanism

Steering assistance mechanism

Photo 1 Derailment-resistant Bogie

図１ 台車枠の輪重減少抑制機構

Photo 2 Test vehicle equipped with derailment-resistant bogie

Side beam

Cross beam
Side beam

Photo 2 Test vehicle equipped Side beam

Rotating mechanism
with derailment-resistant bogie Rotational Direction

Figure 1 Mechanism of controlling decrement of wheel load

Extending outer-side wheelbase

Steering actuator

Steering control device

Figure 2 Assist steering system

 News Release
No. 201605 July 21, 2016
60
40

Average lateral force on outer rail (kN)

Maximum wheel load decrease (%)

輪重減少抑制台車
●Derailment-resistant bogie
50 標準台車
●Conventional bogie
輪重減少率最大値（％）

30
40

30
20

20

10
10
● With steering control
● Without steering control
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0
Train speed (km/h)
走行速度(km/h) 20 30 40 50 60
Train speed (km/h)
Curve radius: 160 m
Cant: 107 mm Curve radius: 120 m
Transition curve length: 60 m Cant: 107 mm

Figure 3: Wheel load maintaining effect Figure 4: Lateral force reducing effect
on a transition curve on a circular curve

Derailment-resistant
一般的な構造の台車
Conventional bogie 脱線しにくい台車
bogie
1.0
Average derailment coefficient

0.8
脱線係数平均値

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
30km/h 40km/h 50km/h
Curve曲線通過速度
passing speeds

Curve radius: 160 m

Cant: 107 mm
Transition curve length: 60 m

Figure 5: Average derailment coefficient when passing

curves at MIHARA Test Center