Open Access

Reinhold Meisinger

• The Sky Train at Dortmund University campus is a driverless transit system. Cabins suspended from the elevated guideway glide along towards to their destination. The vehicles can run on the double track route at one-minute intervalls with a nominal speed of 50 km/h. The guideway consists of boxshaped steel beams with a narrow slot on bottom. With its structure it forms the inside support wheel and guidance wheel tracks for the bogies. The passenger cabins hanging on the bogies are oscillating in lateral direction influenced by the periodic track irregularities. For different system parameters the response of the lateral cabin acceleration at the center of gravity is determined by frequency response analysis and computer simulation. It is shown that by optimizing the design parameters the passenger ride comfort in lateral direction can be improved enormously. Further improvement is possible only by active control. The original version of the paper was presented on the Second International Conference on Dynamics, Vibration and Control,The Sky Train at Dortmund University campus is a driverless transit system. Cabins suspended from the elevated guideway glide along towards to their destination. The vehicles can run on the double track route at one-minute intervalls with a nominal speed of 50 km/h. The guideway consists of boxshaped steel beams with a narrow slot on bottom. With its structure it forms the inside support wheel and guidance wheel tracks for the bogies. The passenger cabins hanging on the bogies are oscillating in lateral direction influenced by the periodic track irregularities. For different system parameters the response of the lateral cabin acceleration at the center of gravity is determined by frequency response analysis and computer simulation. It is shown that by optimizing the design parameters the passenger ride comfort in lateral direction can be improved enormously. Further improvement is possible only by active control. The original version of the paper was presented on the Second International Conference on Dynamics, Vibration and Control, Beijing, P.R. China 2006.…