Flow between the train underbody and trackbed around the bogie area and its impact on ballast flight

The aerodynamic behaviour of flow past a simplified high-speed train bogie including the ground underneath with ballast particles at scale 1:10 is studied numerically. It is found that the flow around the bogie is highly unsteady due to strong flow separations and flow interactions developed there. Generally, the ballast particles distributed inside the wheels are situated in the stronger turbulent flow and are subject to much higher aerodynamic forces than the particles located outside the wheels. Moreover, these aerodynamic forces increase when the ballast particles are located downstream of the bogie cavity and reach the peak values close to the bogie cavity trailing edge. The force time-series are produced based on the simulations of an array of the ballast particles in a wind-tunnel setup and it shows that the ballast flight is apt to happen as the rear part of the bogie cavity passing by the ballast bed. When the ballast particles become airborne, the fluctuating forces generated increase significantly. Therefore, the stronger unsteady flow developed around the bogie cavity, especially in the cavity trailing edge region, will produce larger fluctuating forces on the ballast particles, which will be more likely to cause ballast flights for high-speed railways.