Analysis of the Concept ”Spatial Curve on the Railway” with
Modelling Elements
Dmitry Kargapoltsev
1
, Sergey Shkurnikov
2
and Sergey Kosenko
3
1
Ural State University of Railway Transport, Ekaterinburg,, Russia
2
St. Petersburg State University of Railway Transport, St. Petersburg, Russia
3
Siberian Transport University, Novosibirsk, Russia
Keywords: Curve, forces, transition, railway, vertical, spatial, railway, track, design, profile.
Abstract: Current trends in the design and growth of the railway network in the Russian Federation and in the world
should take into account the development of technology both in the design and in the current maintenance of
the railway track. The article explores the movement of rolling stock on the existing curves on a section of
the Sverdlovsk railway where, during operation, the transition curve was superimposed in terms of the vertical
curve in the profile, which does not meet the requirements of the norms. Thus the «spatial» curve was formed.
Its influence on the rolling stock is analyzed, forces are studied both in the contact «wheel-rail», and in the
intercarriage space. The study argues for the removal of restrictions on the design of combined transition and
vertical curves.
1 INTRODUCTION
The need to review legislative norms and regulations
and the widespread introduction of modern
technologies, including in the design of railways, is
one of the most important tasks of Russia in the
twenty-first century. Therefore, the Government of
the Russian Federation in 2020 adopted the Federal
Law (Federal Law of the Russian Federation, 2020.
247-FZ) on the «Regulatory Guillotine», which
provides for a total revision of the mandatory
requirements according to which the regulatory acts
and the mandatory requirements contained in them
should be reviewed.
The rules to be reviewed should also include the
prohibition to combine transition curves with vertical
curves in the profile when designing railways (SR
238.1326000.2015. Railway track; Han, 2014).
Initially, it was not possible to contain such a
«spatial» curve (Turbin, 2017.) at the beginning of the
formation of regulations and development of track
equipment, but with the development of pathways
this requirement has become obsolete and needs to be
reviewed, as it is redundant and costly.
So far, spatial design (following the example of
foreign countries) has been based mainly on empirical
tracing rules and the use of sketch geometry
techniques. This is related to the drawing of forward-
looking images to check and improve the road’s
spatial smoothness. This requires additional labour,
specialized training and design skills, so the
widespread adoption of spatial design principles has
been delayed
(Dzenis, 1968).
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
In order to develop the hypothesis of combining the
transition curve with the vertical curve in the profile
under conditions of passenger and freight traffic, it is
necessary to identify the operation of these sections.
In January 2018, the track-measuring car-aboratory
KWL-P2 1:075 was allowed to pass through the area
under investigation in order to check the state of the
rail track on the main geometric parameters (level,
template, panel, subsidy). The main performance
characteristics of the existing rail section are
presented in Table 1.
At the moment, there are sections on the
Sverdlovsk Railway where two curves converge — a
transition curve in terms of plan and a vertical curve
in a profile formed by intensive loads in difficult
sections of the railway. The so- called «spatial» curve
was formed. This is not a mass phenomenon and
I with Modelling Elements.