Grey wolf optimiser in design of leaf springs of railway vehicles

Abstract

Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. The paper deals with the usage of grey wolf optimiser (GWO) in the optimal design of leaf springs with railway vehicles. The main goal is minimisation of mass of leaf spring, with retention required characteristics of suspension system. Based on the exposed analytical model of leaf springs and requirements for suspension system, an optimisation model is developed. The developed model and GWO are applied in the optimal design of leaf spring of 4-axled freight wagon for axle load of 200 kN. The obtained results have shown that the proposed model and GWO provide significant reduction of mass of leaf springs of about 46.7%, in relation to the conventional design method. In addition, the numerical model of leaf spring is developed and the design obtained by GWO is verified by finite element method (FEM) calculation. Proposed approach enables significant material savings and reduction of production costs, as well as the reduction of design time of leaf springs of railway vehicles.