A certain gap spacing between adjacent vehicles is usually inevitable in wind tunnel force tests of high-speed trains under no crosswind, which may affect the wind tunnel test results. Thus, to understand the influence of gap spacings on the train aerodynamics, the aerodynamic drag, pressure distributions and airflow structures of 1/8th-scale high-speed train models with gap spacings of 0, 5, 8, 10, 20, and 30 mm were studied using RANS based on SST k-ω turbulence model. The simulation method was verified by the wind tunnel experiment data. The results show that the gap spacing significantly affects the airflow structure around inter-car gap and aerodynamic resistances of train models. For the high-speed train model scaled at 1/8th at zero yaw, compared with gap spacing of 0 mm, the gap spacings lead to a significant reduction in the aerodynamic drag of the head car and an increase in that of the tail car, whereas which of the middle car is not significant. The maximum difference of the drag coefficient of the entire train model is smaller than 2.0%. When the gap spacing does not exceed 8 mm, the discrepancies of the drag coefficients of three cars are within 6.15%.

Under strong winds, the effect of sudden windbreak transition (WT) on high-speed trains is severe, leading to a deterioration of train aerodynamics and sudden yawing motion of the car body. To address these problems, based on a high-speed train and the specific geometric conditions derived from Xinjiang railway, first, the impact of a WT on the train and reasons for sudden changes in aerodynamic forces were determined by flow structural analysis. Furthermore, based on a multibody system dynamic model, the dynamic responses to WT were analysed. The results show that the impacts of WT were the strongest on the head car. WT had a strong effect on the train due to the unreasonable structural shape and the insufficient height of the windbreak in the transition region. This led to a strong push effect on the train; subsequently, the train’s dynamic characteristics deteriorated.

The CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) numerical simulation method with the DES (detached eddy simulation) approach was adopted in this paper to investigate and compare the aerodynamic performance, pressure distributions of the train surface, and flow fields near the train model placed above the subgrade with non-rail, realistic rail, and simplified rail models under crosswind. The numerical methods were verified with the wind tunnel tests. Significant differences in aerodynamic performances of the train body and bogie were found in the cases with and without a rail model as the presence of the rail model had significant impacts on the flow field underneath the vehicle. A larger yaw angle can result in a more significant difference in aerodynamic coefficients. The deviations of the train aerodynamic forces and the pressure distribution on the train body with the realistic and simplified rail models were not significant. It was concluded that a rail model is necessary to get more realistic results, especially for large yaw angle conditions. Moreover, a simplified rectangular rail model is suggested to be employed instead of the realistic rail and is capable to get accurate results.

Due to the deterioration of the crosswind-protection performance of the original earth embankment windbreak walls on the train with increased speed, researching the influence of the heightened windbreak walls on aerodynamic performances of trains as well as the protection of the catenary is necessary for optimizing the windproof performance. The improved delayed detached eddy simulation based on the shear stress transport (SST) κ-ω turbulence model was employed to simulate flow structures. Furthermore, the effect on the displacement of the catenary was investigated using the finite element method (FEM). The numerical case was validated against the field tests. The results show that the aerodynamic performances of the train were improved as the windbreak wall was heightened by 0.5 m. Whereas, further heightening the windbreak wall worsened the aerodynamic performance. When the windbreak wall was heightened by 0.5 and 1 m, the wind speed of the catenary was reduced by 31.17% and 53.87%, and the displacement of the catenary was reduced by 48.09% and 74.11%, respectively, compared with that of the original windbreak wall. These results reveal that the wind-protection performance on the train and catenary can be both improved by reasonably heightening windbreak walls.