TILTING TRAINS

(TECHINICAL SEMINAR)
Submitted By

SURESHA.C (1GV01ME063)

In partial fulfillment of the requirements

For the successful completion of VIII semester of

Bachelor of Engineering
In
Mechanical Engineering

Under the Guidance of:

C.N.SURESHA

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL
ENGINEERING
GOLDEN VALLEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
KOLAR GOLD FIELDS - 563120.
 GOLDEN VALLEY INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY

Kolar Gold Fields-563120

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
CERTIFICATE
Certified that the technical seminar
TILTING TRAINS
Is a bonafied work carried out by
SURESHA.C (1GV01ME063)
In partial fulfillments of the requirements for the
successful completion of 8TH semester of Bachelor
of Engineering (Mechanical) of Visveswaraiah
Technological University, Belgaum during the
Academic Year 2004-2005.It is certified that all
corrections /suggestions indicated for internal
Assessment have been incorporated in the Report
deposited in the Department Library.This seminar
report has been approved as it satisfies the academic
requirements in respect of seminar work prescribed
in the syllabus.

Signature of committee
1.
2.
Signature of the Guide Signature of the H.O.D

(C.N.SURESHA) (Prof.D.SRINIVAS RAO)

SYNOPSIS

With the invention of new technologies in various features of the railway transportation
the human beings are more benefited.

One of the technology that the railway engineers thinking is about the “THE TILTING
TRAINS”, which provide the passengers and the goods to reach the destination with a
minimum time.

The technology involved in TILTING TRAIN is that when ever the trains pass over the
curves and turnings of the railway tracks the compartments of the train is tilted to a
certain angle by which the trains can travel with no reduction in speed.

By adopting this technology of TILTING TRAINS the fuel consumed by the trains can
be saved ,the passengers can feel comfort and also time can be saved.
 CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Problem with corners

3. What is tilting train?

4. Why tilting helps?

5. How do trains tilt?

6. Problems associated in tilting the track

7. Passenger comfort ness

8. Countries who developed the tilting technology

9. Advantages and Disadvantages of tilting trains

10. Summary

11. Bibliography
 INTRODUCTION

Train is a mass transporter, which transports humans and goods from one place to another
place. We have trains, which run by diesel and electricity. Among goods and passenger
trains the most concerned one is passenger trains.

The passenger train should move quickly with high speeds. The rail road will not be
always straight it should pass through curves and turns. We all know that if you are
driving in your car and you take a turning at speed you feel centrifugal forces. Well it is
no different from trains, if a train takes a turning at speeds centrifugal forces will be
experienced.

The major problem for any trains is to pass over the curves and turns of the railroads. If
the train moves with the same speed at the curves and turns the train may slip from the
track, so the speed of the train will be slowdown drastically to avoid slip.

This results in wastage of fuel and in turn reduces the speed of the train, which is main
consideration for the passenger trains. One of the solution found to avoid this situation is
the tilting trains.
 PROBLEMS WITH CORNERS

We all know that if your driving in your car and you take a corner at speed you feel
centrifugal forces. Well it is no different from trains; if a train takes a corner at speed then
centrifugal forces come in. Often train operating companies face a decision for building a
high speed railway transport system... they can either invest money in the train to make it
tilt but use existing railway lines, or they invest money in a new railway but don't need to
spend money on expensive tilting mechanisms. This is why TGV, and ICE and bullet
trains do not tilt, because they have their own dedicated high speed railway lines where
curves are built with very high radii.

It is worth pointing out that the centrifugal force is a function of v2/r where v is the
velocity and r is the radius. This means if you double the velocity, you quadruple the
centrifugal force. Similarly, if you want to triple the velocity but keep the centrifugal
force the same, you must increase the radius by a factor of nine! Something not always
possible. This is why even apparently gentle curves can be much more of a problem with
high speeds than one might thing, because the force rises with the square of velocity.
 WHAT IS TILTING TRAIN ?

Tilting train consists of a tilting mechanism that enables increased speed on regular
tracks.

In the upper part of the tilting trains that is in which the passengers are seated can be
tilted sideways. During the motion of the train if the train has to steer to left in a left
turning the coaches of the train will be tilted to the left in order to compensate the
centrifugal push to the right and conversely during the right turn.

These trains are constructed such that inertial forces which cause the tilting can be
controlled by a computer.

If the trains travel at speeds more than the specified speeds at the turnings of the railway
tracks their will be centrifugal forces acting on the train. Due to these centrifugal forces
the train may slip and push out of the tracks. But in case of tilting trains which will not
happen, because of the reason that centrifugal forces will be compensated by tilting
mechanism.
 WHY TILTING HELPS?

When sitting on a corner going at speed there are two forces acting on you, gravitational
force and the centrifugal force which is accelerating you into the corner. In physics when
two forces act, then this causes a resultant force. The resultant force will push you into
your seat and to the side. However if the train is tilting, then the normal contact force of
you on your seat will be the same as the resultant force you are experiencing. This means
as far as the passenger is concerned he or she is just being pulled into his or her seat, and
he or she is used to that so no discomfort is felt.

This is true also of aero planes, commercial planes tilt a large amount, up to 30 degrees
when going around corners in some cases to cater for passenger comfort. As the tilting of
the aero plane is to get rid of the problem of centrifugal forces, or more accurately to
disguised the centrifugal forces as a part of gravity as far as the passengers are concerned.
The only way you know if the aero plane is tilting is to look out of the window.

Trains that tilt can go up to 25% to 40% faster around curves than conventional trains
without upsetting the passengers, and as mentioned before this can significantly increase
average speeds and cut journey times.
 HOW DO TRAINS TILT?

Carriages have tilting mechanisms. Obviously the bogies cannot tilt because they ride on
the track and must follow the path of the track. So the coaches have to tilt on the bogies.
The way they do this is simple, the bogie acts a fulcrum in the center and it is free to tilt
either side. Then pistons control how much the coach tilts. The pistons are controlled by a
small computer, which uses a spirit level. The spirit level is used to check if things are
horizontal remember, i.e. at right angles to the resultant force acting. Normally this force
is gravity, but when going round a corner the resultant is a combination of gravity and
centrifugal forces. This means the spirit level indicates it is no longer horizontal, so the
computer adjusts the pistons until horizontal is read. Again this will not be horizontal to
the ground, but as far as anyone on the train is concerned it will be horizontal, keeping
the passengers happy.

In the early days they tried to use inertial force to let the trains tilt… i.e. they would have
no mechanism to make them tilt but the carriages would have a low center of gravity so
centrifugal forces on the carriage would cause them to tilt. This proved unsuccessful.
 PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED IN TILTING THE TRACK

Well on high speed lines the track in the UK is heavily banked up on corners, although
going in a high speed train you don't notice it at all. Occasionally when a high speed train
in the UK comes to a stop because of a red signal or something on a curve you can really
notice how much its slanted, on a stop on a curve put a bottle on the floor and will slide
across to the other side.

However there are limitations with tilting tracks, first of all the banking has to be
designed with a specific speed in mind. A banked up track meant for 125mph trains is
going to cause discomfort to passengers in a local 75mph train, as when a slower train
goes round a banked corner it will make passengers feel like they are falling to a side. Of
course you could build dedicated high speed lines, but then you would engineer them
without tight curves. This limits the extent to which tracks can be banked up. If the track
is banked too much for really fast trains, then if any train comes to a stop on the curve
due to a red signal the slant will cause discomfort to passengers. Also arranging for the
overhead pantrograph to make proper contact with a wire above a banked curve is a little
tricky.

Clearly trains themselves need to tilt, then you get the double benefit of tilted track and
tilting train, and the train can tilt to exactly suit the speed it is going at.
 PASSENGER COMFORTNESS

One might think it is not safe to push a train round a corner at high speed. Indeed that is
true. However the crucial thing is that the speed at which it becomes unsafe, i.e. the speed
at which there is enough force to push the train off the track is incredibly high. In fact the
force needed would be enough so that all passengers on the train couldn't move and
would be stuck to the sides of the train. This implies that there is scope for increasing the
speed of a train round corners a great deal without it becoming unsafe, however
passengers will object.

There are two reasons why it is bad for passengers. I have been on a late running Inter
City 125 and it took a corner at some speed although only about 90mph and the corner
wasn't tight enough to say see the train at the other end by looking out of the window.
The corner wasn't tight enough to notice turning either. However you could feel the
forces definitely, and empty cups rolled across tables, bags creaked and I felt pushed
against the wall.

Any faster and it would be extremely uncomfortable for passengers and they would rather
the train slowed down and take a little longer. Also companies don't like to run trains at
speed round corners because it upsets passengers, as when exposed to turning forces they
may become worried the train is going to fly off the tracks (which incidentally has never
happened). This might make people nervous about traveling on high speed trains. The
reason no one is ever nervous about traveling at nearly 200mph on a train is because it is
smooth and constant. If it was doing corners at these speeds people wouldn't like it.
People get freaked out doing 50mph on a roller coaster which involves tight curves,
imagine how they feel when serious speed is involved! Its all down to the forces a
passenger feels, if a passenger feels a lot of strong forces then he or she is going to be
nervous, and may avoid traveling on the train, or just choose a slow train.
 COUNTRIES WHO DEVELOPED THE TILTING TECHNOLOGY

Britain
The UK was interested in developing the advanced passenger train for quite a while

France
The development of the tilting train in France began in 1956 when eng. Mauzin built and
experimented a single car unit that used inertial (non-assisted) tilting. This experiment
were suspended because a natural tilting proved too difficult to accomplish. France
preferred to built a vast network of high speed lines and the development of TGV started
in the early seventies with a two-car modified turbo train. Today GEC-Alsthom has
decided to start the development of a tilting TGV that has been delivered few weeks ago
for testing and trials.

Spain
With the ETR-401 Fiat delivered in 1976 a wide-gauge version to Spain that was
designated Tren Basculante (RENFE Type 443). However like its Italian sibling it
remained a single vehicle. Later Spain developed a tilting version of its own Talgo train
(talgo pendular) that so far has proved itself the only successful example of natural tilting
and has met with a huge success.

USA/Canada
The first experiments were carried over in the thirties with non-powered cars (called
pendulum), but the first successful tilting train in the USA was the Sikorsky Turbo Train
which incorporated an inertial tilting mechanism. Later, in 1973 Amtrak tested an active
tilting train called LRC (Light - Rapid - Comfortable) made of ten cars, that unfortunately
had no success. Today Amtrak is trying again with the American Flyer built by
Bombardier using some TGV-derived technologies.
Sweden
ABB developed in the early seventies an active tilting mechanism that was alternative to
the Italian and British ones. This was tested in the X15 vehicle and implemented in the
X2000 series train that so far has had a good success. One curious feature of this trains is
that the tilting mechanism is applied only to the passengers cars and not to the driving
motor units.

Switzerland
As a part of the IC-2000 project the Swiss railways are developing a tilting train that has
the provisional designation ICN-2000 and will be built by SIG.

Germany
Germany has adopted tilting technology on its 610 and 611 class series EMU and will
built the ICT for long-range intercity services
ADVANTAGES
1. Fuel consumed by the trains can be minimized.

2. Speed of the trains can be maintained constant and hence time to reach the
destination is minimized

3. Their will be Comfort ness for the passengers.

DISADVANTAGES
1. Very costly to manufacture these kind of trains.

2. If the coaches do not tilt then it is dangerous.

 SUMMARY

While the Very high speed trains like the TGV could be regarded as the Rolls Royce of
trains, tilting trains could be thought of as the cheep and cheerful mini metro. The price
differential is fairly similar too, it costs about 20 times more per unit distance to build a
dedicated high speed line than it does to upgrade existing lines for tilting trains. This is
what makes tilting trains extremely attractive. However there are disadvantages. 140mph
or 230km/h is about as fast as trains go when not on dedicated lines. And then they have
to be fitted in with slower moving traffic.

With rail travel growing all over Europe, the problems of railways reaching saturation
point has forced new lines to be build. This is why despite the success of the Italian
Pendolini a new high speed line with 300 km/h trains is being built, because existing lines
are at saturation.
BIBILOGRAPHY

Theory of machines KHURMI . R. S

Railway Engineering PROFILLDIS . V. A

www.goggle search.com TILTING TRAINS

TILTING OF TRAINS WHILE TAKING RIGHT TURN IN
THE TRACKS
TILTING OF TRAINS WHILE TAKING RIGHT TURN
IN THE TRACKS