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A New Composite Leaf Spring for In-Board Bogie of New Generation High-Speed Trains

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Abstract

The in-board bogie is designed to be applied in next-generation China railway high-speed trains to further achieve lightweight and higher speed (400 km/h). Traditional steel coil springs could not be used in the in-board bogie due to strict lightweight requirements and narrow installation space. This research aims to propose a buckle-type composite leaf spring assembly to replace the traditional steel coil springs. Meanwhile, the buckle-type leaf spring assembly is needed to meet specific size (length and width less than 720 mm and 120 mm) and performance requirements (ultimate load over 100 kN, vertical stiffness around 1300 N/mm) for the primary suspension. Static and dynamic flexural experiments, as well as relevant finite element method (FEM) analysis were carried out to explore the mechanical properties of the composite leaf springs assembly. Simulation results show that the maximum stress of the leaf spring body under the rated load and ultimate load is 314.6 MPa and 488.1 MPa, respectively. The vertical stiffness of the composite leaf spring assembly from numerical simulation is 1362.3 N/mm, which is consistent with that from the static flexural test (1350.4 N/mm). Experimental results revealed that the vertical stiffness of the composite leaf spring was decreased by 1.06% and 1.32% compared to its initial stiffness after one and two million cycles of cyclic flexural load, respectively, and a slight matrix damage was observed in the leaf spring body. Therefore, this buckle-type composite leaf spring assembly meets the design requirements, and can ensure a safe and smooth operation of high-speed trains.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available as the data also forms part of an ongoing study, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51808288), Jiangsu province undergraduate innovation and entrepreneurship training program (No. 2022DC0689), Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (College Project JXSS-003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211800, China

    Xutong Zhang, Junfeng Hu, Yifan Wang, Siqi Zhang, Rui Qian, Yinyuan Huang, Felix Thompson, Jingxuan Ma, Wenlong Lu & Qingji Cui

  2. Anhui Gaohong New Materials Technology Co. LTD, Hefei, 231131, China

    Junfeng Hu

  3. College of Aerospace Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China

    Dingding Chen

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  1. Xutong Zhang
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  5. Siqi Zhang
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Contributions

Xutong Zhang: Methodology, Software, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data Curation, Writing – original draft. Junfeng Hu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. Yifan Wang: Validation, Investigation. Siqi Zhang: Investigation, Formal analysis. Qian Rui: Investigation. Yinyuan Huang: Investigation. Felix Thompson Eshun: Investigation, Writing – review & editing. Jingxuan Ma: Visualization. Wenlong Lu: Investigation, Visualization.

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Correspondence to Junfeng Hu.

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Zhang, X., Hu, J., Wang, Y. et al. A New Composite Leaf Spring for In-Board Bogie of New Generation High-Speed Trains. Appl Compos Mater 30, 1377–1392 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10443-022-10095-4

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