Energy-Regenerative Semiactive Lateral Suspension Control in High-Speed Trains Using Electromagnetic Damper Cum Energy Harvester

With the increasing speeds of high-speed trains (HSTs), advanced suspension design are necessary to guarantee riding comfort and energy efficiency. In this study, a novel energy-regenerative semiactive secondary suspension system of HSTs and the corresponding control strategy, which have not been reported in the literature, were developed using the emerging electromagnetic damper cum energy harvester (EMDEH) with both vibration control and energy harvesting functions. The developed EMDEH can provide continuously tunable damping coefficients by semiactively controlling the duty cycle of an energy harvesting circuit. The mechanical behavior and energy performance of a full-scale EMDEH prototype were experimentally characterized via cyclic tests. An EMDEH simulation model was developed and verified through comparison with experimental results. A semiactive control strategy was designed to track the target force generated by a Linear-Quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) controller. Numerical simulations revealed that the semiactive EMDEH (SEMDEH) could reduce the car body vibration more effectively than the traditional passive dampers and fixed-duty-cycle EMDEH (FEMDEH) at train speeds of 200-350 km/h. Moreover, although the FEMDEH generated a greater power than the SEMDEH in the aforementioned train speed range, the SEMDEH could still generate powers of 25.89-153.19 W.

Automated summary

This study developed a novel electromagnetic damper cum energy harvester for semiactive secondary suspension systems of high-speed trains, along with a corresponding control strategy. Experimental results demonstrated that the semiactive EMDEH could effectively reduce car body vibrations compared to traditional passive dampers and fixed-duty-cycle EMDEH.