TY - JOUR A1 - Romero-Navarrete, José A. A1 - Otremba, Frank A1 - Hurtado-Hurtado, G. A2 - Romero-Navarrete, José A. T1 - A Conceptual Design of a Self-Centering Centre Plate T2 - International Journal of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering N2 - Turning maneuvers originate higher forces exerted on the rail and the loss of locomotive energy, at a rate that is function of several parameters that influence the magnitude of the developed horizontal wheel-rail forces, including the friction at the centre plate and the bogie´s yaw stiffness. However, such a friction at the contact surfaces of the centre plate is needed to mitigate the Hunting phenomenon when the train moves on straight track segments. In this paper, a self-centering centre plate is proposed, consisting of a lubricated centre plate, equipped with a spring- and damper-based self-centering mechanism. Simulation results of the proposed mechanism suggest that the energy performance in turns of a train car equipped with such self-centering centre plate is comparatively better, as the peak friction forces linked to the dry friction at the contact surfaces of current centre plate designs, are avoided. The assessment of the hunting performance of the proposed device in straight track segments is proposed as the continuation of this work. KW - Bogie´s yaw stiffness KW - Bogie´s yaw friction KW - Centre plate KW - Self-centering mechanism KW - Turning PY - 2020 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/51241 AN - OPUS4-51241 UR - https://publications.waset.org/aerospace-and-mechanical-engineering SN - 1307-6892 VL - 14 IS - 9 SP - 376 EP - 382 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany