Train Aerodynamics Research in 2020 Part 2

Part 1 of this review can be found here

Trains in tunnels

The most important flow parameter to be considered in a study of tunnel aerodynamics is of course the rapid change in pressure as trains pass through. A number of investigations in this area have reported in 2020. Perhaps the most significant is the full-scale investigation of Somaschini et al (2020). They measured both on track and on train pressure measurements on a high-speed Italian line. They showed the pressure transients caused by trains in tunnels were very sensitive to the initial flow conditions in the tunnel, and specifically the residual velocities caused by the passage of earlier trains. The on-train measurements consisted of the measurements of pressures around the train envelope, together with the internal pressures for both sealed and unsealed trains. The effects of train passings were also measured, and the effect of HVAC shuttering systems on internal pressures identified. This is a very substantial piece of work and provides much data that could be used for the verification of physical and numerical modelling methodologies in the future. Lu et al (2020) investigated pressure transients for trains crossing in a tunnel using RNG k-epsiilon CFD techniques and moving model experiments.  They used three of four coach trains in tunnels of varying length. The main thrust of the investigation was aimed at investigating the effect of changes in tunnel cross section. There was a respectable level of agreement between CFD and physical model tests, and the authors concluded that the optimal geometry for a reduction in tunnel section depends upon the point at which trains pass, which is of course very difficult to control in practice. Izadi et al (2020) used a simple moving model of circular train in tunnel and compared the results with standard RANS methods. Unsurprisingly there was good agreement. Although this work is in effect a repeat of work that was carried out in the 1970s and 1980s, it does have a novel aspect in that the effect of trains accelerating and decelerating was investigated.

The other major flow parameter of importance is of course the flow velocity, in the slipstream and wake of the trains. These have been investigated by two studies. Li et al (2020a) investigated the slipstreams caused by single and passing trains using URANS CFD calculations around eight coach trains passing through a tunnel roughly three times that length. Unsurprisingly they found that the slipstreams and wakes were highly complex varying both spatially and temporally. The highest velocities were in the train / wall gap or in the gap between passing trains as would be expected. Interestingly they found that the size of the longitudinal vortices in train wakes decreased as the train entered the tunnel and were constrained by the tunnel walls, although their vertical extent increased. Meng et al (2020) used IDDES CFD techniques to investigate the slipstreams and wakes in tunnel for trains with different nose shapes. A three-coach train geometry was used, with noses of variable length. It was found that the long nose shape reduced the slipstream velocities throughout the tunnel.

The reduction in strength of micro-pressure waves from tunnel outlets continues to be a topic of investigation. Luo et al (2020b) investigated this effect for mountainous terrain where there was no space for lengthy for entrance structures, looking instead at the use of cross passages near the tunnel inlet. Both moving model tests and CFD techniques were used, and good agreement was found. It was concluded, again perhaps unsurprisingly, that as many large cross passages near the tunnel entrance as possible had most effect on the strength of the MPW emitted from the tunnel. Saito and Fukuda (2020) investigated entrance stepped hoods of variable area with porous opening using acoustic theory and found that the optimal design could results in significantly shorter hoods than conventional designs.

The study of the aerodynamics of subway systems continues to develop with a number of investigations carried out. In particular there have been two full scale investigations reported. The first, by Hu et al (2020) measured airflow characteristics in the tunnels around a subway station and used the results to calibrate a network model. This model was then used to investigate the effect of different arrival and departure strategies on the air flow within stations.  The cooling load of train air flow was also investigated, in relationship to mechanical ventilation methodologies.   There were significant variations in ventilation characteristics as train operation varied, but the authors found it was possible to arrive at an optimized HVAC operation. Khaleghi and Talaee (2020) carried out full scale velocity measurements in a subway station with longitudinal ventilation of tunnels, with a novel air curtain system to control the ventilation flows within the station. The results were used to calibrate a CFD methodology, which was then used to investigate a range of ventilation and air curtain strategies studied.

Liu et al (2020b) used a standard k-omega SST CFD methodology to investigate a four-coach train accelerating to 120km/h as it left a station and entered a tunnel, and in particular made estimates of the time varying pressure and friction drag. As would be expected, the latter increased substantially on tunnel entry. Huang et al (2020) also used a standard RNG k-epsilon CFD methodology to investigate the loads on the surfaces of tunnels caused by the passage of a six-car subway train. The methodology was verified using equivalent moving model tests. The investigation showed that the loads were particularly sensitive to overall tunnel blockage and tunnel shape.

Finally, it is necessary to point out that the effect of air movement on the spread of fires in tunnels is not considered here. The interested reader is referred to Liu et al (2020c) and Peng et al (2020) for recent investigations.

Trains in crosswinds

Crosswind forces

One of the basic requirements for the study of trains in crosswinds is a knowledge of the crosswind induced forces. As pointed out in TAFA, the determination of these forces is not straightforward either experimentally or numerically. A number of authors have addressed some of these issues. Liu et al (2020d) investigated the optimum number of pressure taps on a train to obtain accurate forces and moments through pressure integration using DES methodology for a three car HST at yaw angles between six to thirty degrees, and compared their results with directly measured forces from wind tunnel tests. They found that an arrangement of 15 x 4 taps on each face of the train produced adequate results although the difference between the computed and measured force coefficient values was considerable (up to 10% for side force coefficient, and up to 20% for lift force coefficient. Interestingly they found that only between 2 and 4% of the forces were due to friction rather than pressure effects.  Huo et al (2020) investigated whether the trailing edge shape of dummy vehicle in crosswind tests (which is conventionally mounted behind the live vehicle) affected the measured forces and moments. A range of shapes were considered, from blunt ended to streamlined, using DDES-SST techniques. Little effect was found for yaw angles up to 45 degrees, but both side and lift force coefficients fell below the values for long trains at a yaw angle of 60 degrees, with the trailing edge shape making little difference. Li et al (2020b)  looked in detail at the choice of the RANS methodology embedded within the DES approach, an important issue that has not been much investigated in the past. In particular they investigated the adequacy of the one equation SA-DES approach and the two equation SST-DES approach as applied to a Class 390 train at a yaw angle of thirty degrees, for which wind tunnel data was available.  Both methods gave similar values and trends, of surface pressure but there were considerable differences in the predicted separation positions. Side force and rolling moment coefficients were similar, but lift force coefficient were very different. The authors concluded that SST-DES was the most appropriate to use.

CFD techniques were also used to investigate the effect of specific geometrical features on measured and calculated crosswind forces. Guo et al (2020b) used DDES to investigate the effect of bogie complexity on crosswind measurements and found that the rolling moment coefficients increased as bogie simulations became more complex, with a variation of around 20%.  Jiang et al (2020) carried out a DES investigation of the effect rail type in cross wind simulation. No rail, simple rail, complex rail simulations were  used. It was found that there was little effect on side force coefficients and rolling moment coefficients were only affected in the higher yaw angle range but lift force coefficients were significantly affected for all yaw angles. The results for the simplified and complex rail simulations were very similar. Maleki et al (2020) in their LES study of double stack freight in crosswind particularly investigated the effect of the gap between containers. They showed that variations in gap width had a significant effect on flow topology, which was highlighted through significant differences in mode shape appearing in a POD analysis. The flow structures that were observed included vortices from the leading windward corner of the container and longitudinal vortices from the top and bottom leeward corners. The authors were mainly concerned with the effect of crosswinds on drag, and their work illustrated the drag benefit of keeping the gaps between the containers small, which became more substantial as yaw angles increased.

Zhang et al (2020b) carried out a CFD analysis of the Chiu and Squire idealised train model at 90 degrees yaw and used various optimization schemes to optimize cross wind forces by geometric changes. They found that the changes had little effect on side forces, but that lift could be reduced by 20% by small sectional modifications. The work has little practical significance.

The investigations described above have, if only implicitly, been concerned with the crosswind forces on train due to normal, cyclonic winds. By contrast Xu et al (2020a), using DES simulations, investigated the forces on  a three-car train passing through a tornado simulation. The tornado was small in relation to the train, and there were significant scaling issues as in all such simulations. Forces were calculated for different vortex positions relative to the train, and whilst of high intensity were found to be transient and very localized. The overall representativeness of the simulated flow field in relation to real tornadoes must be questioned.

A number of investigations, usually CFD studies, have looked at crosswind forces on trains in the presence of different infrastructure geometries. Guo et al (2020c) used DDES techniques to study flow over embankments with and without trains. A three-car HST model was used, with embankments up to 7m high, with a simulation of an upstream power law profile. Both velocities and train forces and moments were measured for a range of different cases. The results are potentially very useful and need to be integrated with existing compilations of similar measurements. Wang et al (2020e) carried out a RANS study on a three-car HST to investigate the effects of ground clearance, typical embankments and viaducts and a truss bridge, at yaw angles of 30, 45 and 60 degrees. Results are presented for side and lift force coefficients for the different cases. Li and He (2020) carried out wind tunnel measurements of a train on a bridge with a ninety-degree wind and measured aerodynamic forces and moments for different angles of attack. As this angle varied across the range that might be expected in reality, significant variations in the forces and moments were observed. These results are valuable, although the authors recognize that strictly they are valid only for the bridge geometry that they studied. Zou et al (2020) used RANS SST to study the aerodynamic forces and moments on a three-car HST as it travelled into and out of an area on a bridge sheltered by a wind barrier. Very high unsteady forces were observed on both train and barrier at entry and exit. Yao et al (2020) carried out a similar RANS SST study of a train on a truss bridge and also found similar highly transient and unsteady forces. They also investigated the effect of angle of attack. Gu et al (2020) report a study of flow and forces behind corrugated wind barriers, with a wavy section of different types. Very large-scale high blockage wind tunnel tests were carried out on a train section at 90 degrees yaw, together with equivalent DES calculations. The forces on the train section varied significantly with barrier “bendiness”.

Two investigations have looked in detail at the crosswind forces on trains as they emerge from a tunnel onto a viaduct in complex terrain.  Deng et al (2020b) carried out a RANS study and found very rapid transients for all forces and moments with some significant overshoots of the equilibrium value. Wang et al (2020f) using SST k-epsilon methods looked at the effect of wind barriers at the tunnel bridge junction, comparing the transient forces with and without barriers.

Vehicle system modelling

Having determined the force and moment coefficients, the next step in addressing crosswind safety is an analysis of the vehicle / wind dynamic system. This requires some formulation to describe wind gusts. There are three basic approaches – the specification of gust magnitudes alone, the specification of a discrete gust shape, and the full stochastic representation of the wind. All three approaches were investigated by Yu et al (2019) whose used examples of all three methods within a generic MDF model for a high-speed train and derived cross wind characteristics for each. These results showed the relationship between the three methods and illustrated the arbitrariness in defining peak gust values.

Montenegro et al (2020a) investigated the effect of cross winds on a train bridge system subject to a stochastic wind field and calculated the forces on both train and bridge. Train bridge interactions were specifically allowed for and a stochastic track irregularity model was used. Three criteria were used to define crosswind characteristics – the rail lateral / vertical force ratios, wheel unloading, and the Prud’homme limit. The comparison with the CWC calculated from the TSI discrete gust methodology showed that the latter was conservative. The authors followed up this work in Montenegro et al (2020b) which investigated the adequacy of the TSI methodology for various bridge heights, and showed that it became progressively less accurate as the bridge height increased due to the fact that it involves a fixed, rather than variable, turbulence intensity. A revised TSI methodology with variable turbulence was proposed.  Montenegro et al (2020c) used this methodology to investigate different types of bridge construction. They showed that direct wind load on trains were more important than the loads transmitted from the bridge, and also looked at safe running speeds.

Yang et al (2020) investigated the train dynamic response on a tunnel / bridge system such as described above. A three-coach train model was used with a many degree of freedom mechanical model, together with RNG k-epsilon CFD calculations for the train forces.  CWCs were again derived, and the rail lateral / vertical force ratios and wheel unloading criteria were used to derive CWCs. Sun et al (2020) investigated an HST passing a wind break with a breach. URANS was used, together with a complex MDF model, and artificial wind gust shapes. It was found, unsurprisingly, that when the gust duration experienced by the train as it passed the breach was equivalent to the train suspension natural frequency, then large force and displacement transients were observed. Wu et al (2020) investigated the hunting stability and rail creep on curved track with a cross wind. As such they looked at the dynamic stability of the vehicle ride, rather than overall stability. They showed that hunting behaviour was changed significantly by cross winds

Two papers of particular significance are those by Wang et al (2020g) and   Liu et al (2020e) The former considered a stochastic simulation of wind as input to a closed form dynamic model that allowed only for major suspension effects.   A frequency response method was used that used wind spectra, mechanical transfer functions to obtain track contact force spectra. This enabled peak values to be calculated from a normal peak value analysis and CDFs of exceedances were derived. The second paper similarly adopted a simple model of the dynamic system, but used both spectral methods and discrete gust profiles, together with force and moment coefficients from CFD calculations and wind tunnel experiments to calculate train displacements and wheel forces. The method can also be used to study pantograph dynamics. Liu et al (2020f) followed on from this work to investigate overturning coefficients for different windspeed changes over different times and to look at a range of geometry changes.

Finally, the work of Xu et al (2020b) should be mentioned. This is a follow on from the work of Xu et al (2020a) for the effect of tornadoes on trains but extended to include a MDF dynamic model. It was shown that derailment was more likely than overturning for the cases considered, although it must be stressed that the realism of the tornado simulation is doubtful.

Miscellaneous wind effects

Follow on from earlier papers on braking plates discussed in the first post (Nui et al 2020a, b, c, d), Zhai et al (2020), using DES calculations over a simulated train roof looked at the effect of a cross wind with a yaw angle of ten degrees.  The unsteady forces on the raised plate were considered during the opening process. Unsurprisingly it was shown that crosswinds increased these forces significantly.

Takahashi et al (2020) investigated the unbalanced tension in the overhead in crosswinds of up to 30m/s. Measurements were made of wire movement in high winds and it was shown that flapping wires imposed significant loads on structures. Methods were derived to determine the frequency and amplitude of the wire movements for use in fatigue analysis.

Emerging issues

Work continues to some extent on evacuated tube transport. Niu et al (2020e) looked at the acceleration and deceleration of short tube vehicles through the sound barrier using IDDES-SST techniques, predicting values of drag, pressure and temperature. They validated their methodology against wind tunnel tests on wedge like shapes. Calculations were performed for s range of acceleration and deceleration profiles and the flow patterns for the two sets of profile were shown to be quite different. Zhou et al (2020b) looked at longer, more train-like vehicles using a 2D axisymmetric k-omega method and investigated the onset of the critical flow phase. Both investigations showed the overall complexity of the shock wave pattern around such vehicles at high speeds.

Although perhaps somewhat peripheral to train aerodynamics, interest continues in air quality in the railway environment. Islam et al (2019) report measurements of a short trial to measure gaseous and particulate pollutants around a railway station in India, that measured high values of PM2.5. Xu and Liu (2020) similarly measured high values of PM2.5 around a Beijing railway station. The former used a trajectory analysis that indicated the majority of the pollutants were from local sources, whilst the latter used the data to develop a spatial prediction model based on modal decomposition that allowed future particulate concentrations to be predicted.  Loxham and Nieuwenhuijsen (2019) present a review of particulate levels on underground railways from a variety of sources , and in particular look at the health effects of the measured pollutants. They concluded that the particulates produced by the operation of the railways themselves was more toxic than the ambient values, because of their metal content, although their health effects were unclear. Ren et al (2018) looked at the use of momentum sources in CFD calculations to represent vehicles, as a potentially more economic type of calculation than using a standard dynamic mesh around trains models. A simple slow speed moving model rig was used for validation purposes. A significant resource saving was indeed reported, and it was shown that the methodology could be used to predict particulate movement in tunnels, with moving trains causing more movement than stationary trains.

Finally, a number of papers present work that looks at train ventilation and air movement within train cabins. These were mainly concerned with the optimization of HVAC systems – Barone et al (2020) who developed a dynamic simulation methodology of HVAC for train trips that included weather effects; Li et al (2019) who conducted CFD calculations to model the flow over passengers in and HST cabin to determine thermal comfort and airflow velocities; Schmeling and Bosbach (2019) who carried out laboratory test on a mock-up of a train cabins with mannikins; and  Talee et al (2020) who measured airflow velocities in a long metro train with a through corridor while accelerating and decelerating. Batutay et al (2020) report measurements of PM2.5 and CO2 levels in train cabins on a subway line in the Philippines. High levels of PM were measured at times.

Final reflections

The two trends noticeable in the last review are again apparent – the large number of published investigations from a small number of Chinese groups, and the growing use of CFD techniques, and in particular the IDDES technique seems to be becoming the most favoured. Having read the papers collated in this year’s review I feel it worth quoting directly two of my concluding comments from last year as they still seem to me to be relevant. Firstly

…….. it seems to the author that there is a growing need for a small set of freely available well documented validation cases, ideally from full scale experiments for a range of train types, that investigators can use routinely to prove their (CFD) techniques. At the moment the validations used are somewhat ad hoc, and perhaps a more systematic approach would give greater confidence in the results, and also allow research papers to be reduced somewhat in length, as the details of the validation cases would not be required…..

And secondly.

….. it must be remembered that CFD simulations, in the same way as physical models, can only offer a simplified representation of the flow around full-scale trains, and need to be interpreted in this light. There is a tendency amongst some authors (and I name no names!) to quote numerical results to higher levels of accuracy than is either sensible or useful when the uncertainty of the full-scale situation is considered.  Just as with physical model tests, the role of the engineer in interpreting CFD results in terms of the reality of the operating railway is crucial……..

These comments still stand.