Vi-Rail is a railway simulation package from VI-grade. It builds upon Adams Car by adding tools that simplifies and streamlines the building of railway components and rails.
Using VI-Rail you will be able to determine the response of your rail vehicle and see the stability, risk of derailment, how much it loads the track and much more. You can also quickly vary parameters to see their effect on your system and determine if the parameters will be a worthwhile upgrade.
VI-Rail is not only meant for trains, it can be used for any track based vehicle. If it runs on rails, VI-Rail can probably solve it. A couple of left-field examples are overhead cranes and roller coasters.
Rail Wheel Interaction - Class 34 Locomotive Bogie
Road-Rail Vehicle with flexible frame - dynamic stresses
Flexible Track Results - Force & Deflection
Rail-Wheel Interaction contact stresses
Co-Co (three axle) locomotive bogie
These videos demonstrate a high-fidelity dynamics simulation of rail and wheel interaction for railway rolling stock, focusing on the detailed behaviour of bogies and wheelsets under realistic track conditions. The simulation captures the complex contact mechanics between the steel wheel profile and the rail head, providing insight into how forces are transmitted through the suspension and bogie structure.
Using advanced multibody and contact modelling techniques, the model resolves:
• Wheel–rail contact mechanics • Normal and tangential contact forces • Wheelset dynamics within the bogie frame • Load transfer through suspension components • Rolling contact behaviour along the rail profile • Dynamic interaction between rolling stock and track
The example shown uses a detailed bogie configuration representative of heavy locomotive rolling stock (Class 34 type bogie), allowing engineers to evaluate how design parameters influence ride stability, contact stresses, and dynamic loads.
This type of simulation is widely used in railway vehicle engineering, multibody dynamics analysis, and rolling stock design optimisation, supporting applications such as:
If you work in railway engineering, vehicle dynamics, or multibody simulation, this example illustrates how detailed modelling can reveal the underlying physics governing rail–wheel interaction in rolling stock systems. Simulation done using Vi-Rail, with Adams Solver.
