The air suspension system is now widely used for railway vehicles. To improve the riding comfort of vehicles equipped with this system, we tested semi-active control system of air suspensions having a variable orifice between air spring and auxiliary air chamber. The orifice is controlled by a controller designed based on the sky-hook control algorithm. We carried out performing excitation test under actual running condition using a carbody equivalent to an actual Shinkansen car fitted with this system on a rolling stock test plant. The results show that this system reduces the natural vibration (at about 1.6Hz) of the carbody /air spring system and cuts the PSD peak value to approximately a half or lesser.

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