Abstract: Specific criteria for modal matching design of railway vehicle structures have been proposed to guide the design of dynamic characteristic parameters between components or within the structure during the vehicle design process, in order to reduce the occurrence of abnormal vibration problems in products. With the increasing requirements for the operation speed, operation quality and lightweight of railway vehicle, the static design method based on traditional standards cannot meet the design requirements. A large number of vehicle service data show that even on the premise of meeting the existing standards, some vehicle structures still encounter abnormal vibration or failure problems, and the vibration signals are mostly harmonic, which belongs to the abnormal category of modal matching design. Therefore, based on the dynamic theory and modal matching design methods in different fields, the modal matching design criteria of railway vehicles are studied and given, and verified by two typical examples. Finally, it is suggested that the modal with modal effective mass(MEM) which accounts for more than 5% of the total elastic modal MEM of the structure should be paid attention in structural modal matching design. For the modal matching design considering dynamic performance, it is recommended that the difference between the excitation dominant frequency and the concerned modal frequency should be at least 15% of the modal frequency, more than 20% is recommended. For the modal matching design only considering structural vibration fatigue, it is recommended that this value should be at least 10%.

Key words: railway vehicle, modal matching, vibration isolation, design criteria, modal effective mass