Track irregularities stochastic modeling

High speed trains are currently meant to run faster and to carry heavier loads, while being less energy consuming and still respecting the security and comfort certification criteria. To face these challenges, a better understanding of the interaction between the dynamic train behavior and the track geometry is needed. As during its lifecycle, the train faces a great variability of track conditions, this dynamic behavior has indeed to be characterized on track portions sets that are representative of the whole railway network. This paper is thus devoted to the development of a stochastic modeling of the track geometry and its identification with experimental measurements. Based on a spatial and statistical decomposition, this model allows the spatial and statistical variability and dependency of the track geometry to be taken into account. Moreover, it allows the generation of realistic track geometries that are representative of a whole railway network. First, this paper describes a practical implementation of the proposed method and then applies this method to the modeling of a particular French high speed line, for which experimental data are available. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.