On dynamics of the track/vehicle system in presence of inhomogeneous rail supporting parameters

Abstract

We study the dynamics of the train/track system in case of an inhomogeneous longitudinal subgrade stiffness/damping distribution. Our model consists of a Bernoulli-Euler beam, fixed at infinity, laying on a viscoelastic Winkler foundation of continuously varying stiffness/damping parameters, and a damped oscillatory load moving along the beam at a constant velocity. In order to obtain an approximate, semianalytical solution we build up a new discretization method based on the approximation of the discretized stiffness/damping values by generalized functions. The approximate solutions tend to continuous functions represented in a closed-form, analytical fashion.