Study on Application of Piezoelectricity to Korea Train eXpress (KTX)

Abstract

In this study, we have investigated application of piezoelectricity to actual commercially operating high-speed Korean train. We recorded and analyzed the vibrations of commercial Korea Train eXpress (KTX). We experimented with different cantilever beam thicknesses (0.25mm, 0.6mm, and 1.0mm) and different piezoelectric material dimensions (length x width x thickness, 10.0mm x 10.0mm x 0.5mm, 20.0mm x 10.0mm x 0.5mm, and 30.0mm x 10.0mm x 0.5mm) on real data from recorded random frequencies and train vibration amplitudes. The addition of tip masses on the cantilever beam decreased the resonance frequency range when the vibrations were constant but not when they were random. The optimal condition was experimentally found, to involve decreasing the piezoelectric substrate beam thickness and increasing the piezoelectric substrate beam area rather than merely increasing the tip mass. The most effective method to improve the operational sensitivity was combination of decreasing the resonance frequency by adding tip masses, decreasing beam thicknesses, and increasing beam areas.