Public Funding for Composite Suspensions Limited

The properties of glass fibre reinforced plastic have been exploited to develop a revolutionary design of railway bogie which incorporates the suspension and damping functions within the glass fibre bogie frame. The design has been verified at 1/5 scale by more than 7 years of successful service operation of two bogies under a passenger wagon with Lakeside Railways, Eastleigh. Having developed the manufacturing procedures for moulding very thick components, full size components have been manufactured and the various sub-assemblies have been loaded statically and dynamically to ensure that the design concepts are fit for purpose. The next step will be to mould the full size bogie frame and test the preproduction bogie under a vehicle on a vehicle shaker rig and then to proceed to track testing and service evaluation. The benefits of such a generic design include a higher payload due to reduction in bogie mass, better load equalisation between wheels on twisted track, less contact between wheel flange and rail and lower audible noise and ground borne vibration emissions. The various design concepts can also be adapted to reduce the mass and improve the performance of existing bogies.