Computational Bifurcation Analysis of Mechanical Systems with Applications to Railway Vehicles

For identifying the long time behaviour of nonlinear dynamical systems with respect to the influence of one or more system parameters, numerical bifurcation analysis is an ideal method. The objective of the paper is to describe a software environment for such an analysis basing on the principles of path-following or continuation under the specific viewpoint of an application on mechanical systems or, more specifically, on railway vehicles being modelled as multibody system. Their stationary as well as their periodic behaviour is considered. Three major topics are of primary interest: The integration of the bifurcation software into a software package for the simulation of arbitrary mechanical systems; the direct calculation of periodic solutions (limit cycles); and the handling of differential algebraic equations (DAE). The algorithms are applied finally on the ‘realistic’ simulation model of a railway vehicle running on a straight track.