The effect of the lubrication on the mechanical behavior of magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) in compression mode is experimentally studied. According to ISO 7743, there are two procedures to characterize specimens in compression mode. Differences in the properties of these materials between lubricated and nonlubricated conditions must be considered if devices such as vibration absorbers and isolators are to be developed. With lubrication, compression is said to be uniaxial and homogeneous, thus material properties can be obtained. Without lubrication, tests are easier to perform but results are strongly dependent on the piece shape. In this study isotropic and anisotropic MREs with iron particle volume concentrations of 10, 20, 30 and 40% are tested under different strain amplitudes, prestrain and magnetic fields for a frequency range up to 300 Hz, with and without lubrication. Important design parameters like amplitude, frequency and magnetic field dependency are showed to be dependent on lubrication.

Rail accelerations can be used on the defect detection and health monitoring of railway vehicle and track components; therefore, mathematical models that predict this response are of interest for reproducing its behaviour in a wide range of situations. The numerical track models based on the Timoshenko beam theory introduce a non-physical response, which is especially noticeable in the rail accelerations. It is due to the lack of dynamic convergence of the Timoshenko finite element (FE). This paper addresses this phenomenon employing an enhanced formulation of the Timoshenko FE that includes internal degrees of freedom (iDoF). The iDoF shape functions are derived from the Timoshenko beam dynamic governing equations. Firstly, the formulation is presented, and its performance is compared with a similar Timoshenko FE formulation. Secondly, the proposal is assessed in the dynamic modelling of railway track structures. The use of iDoF efficiently corrects the non-physical response of rail accelerations by improving the FE dynamic convergence. Subsequently, a filtering criterion for accelerations is proposed, which removes the remaining non-physical response while guaranteeing the conservation of coherent frequency content. Finally, practical cases are simulated for which the proposed methodology is proved to be more efficient and reliable than the standard approach.

The monitoring of overhead contact lines (OCL) is a key part of railway infrastructure maintenance. This paper proposes a methodology to assess the lateral geometry of contact wire, the so-called stagger, by using the dynamic response of a pantograph. The methodology is tested in a validated virtual environment that resembles the behaviour of the pantograph when it interacts with the OCL. A signal processing is developed to define features relating the lateral position of the contact wire with the vertical acceleration of the contact strip. It is demonstrated that these features have a clear and close connection with the lateral position of the contact wire. Subsequently, model-driven machine learning algorithms are defined using these features to address the OCL stagger prediction and the detection of out-of-range lateral displacement due to a faulty steady-arm. The methodology shows a good prediction performance in the estimation of the stagger amplitude/central position and the steady-arms diagnosis. The prediction of the stagger amplitude is performed with a root-mean-square error of 4.7(10) mm. In addition, the area under the Precision-Recall curve is 0.952 CI95 [0.940, 0.962] for the steady-arms diagnosis.

A vertical track model suitable for the study of the dynamic response and the interaction between wheel and rail in the time domain is developed by using Timoshenko beam elements, and its performance is optimised by accounting for the local deflection of these type of elements. Implementation of the local system enables one to obtain an accurate description of the contact force in a more computationally efficient way than other numerical methods, and it leads to an almost total elimination of the discontinuities caused by the local displacement underestimation and the shear incompatibilities introduced by the conventional formulation with Timoshenko beam elements. The work presented here describes both static and dynamic approaches of the local system directly obtained through the resolution of the beam governing equations. The dynamic approach guarantees the shear rotation continuity and describes accurately the track frequency content. The method is tested for parametric excitation, in which it ensures the smoothness of the response. Secondly, it is tested for short-pitch corrugated rails, where overestimation of the contact force is avoided with a reduced model size when compared with conventional Timoshenko element formulation. The results are validated by comparison with those from previous studies

The finite length nature of rail-pad supports is characterised by a Timoshenko beam element formulation over an elastic foundation, giving rise to the distributed support element. The new element is integrated into a vertical track model, which is solved in frequency and time domain. The developed formulation is obtained by solving the governing equations of a Timoshenko beam for this particular case. The interaction between sleeper and rail via the elastic connection is considered in an analytical, compact and efficient way. The modelling technique results in realistic amplitudes of the pinned-pinned' vibration mode and, additionally, it leads to a smooth evolution of the contact force temporal response and to reduced amplitudes of the rail vertical oscillation, as compared to the results from concentrated support models. Simulations are performed for both parametric and sinusoidal roughness excitation. The model of support proposed here is compared with a previous finite length model developed by other authors, coming to the conclusion that the proposed model gives accurate results at a reduced computational cost.