The air spring is the main part of the secondary suspension of passenger railway vehicles. The aim of this paper is to review existing modelling techniques for air springs in order to check if challenges set in the past decade for available models have been met. The advantages and disadvantages of different air spring models (phenomenological/mechanical, thermodynamic, analytic, FEM) are summarised and discussed from the point of view of: model accuracy, multiphysics interaction, influence of structural and material non-linearities, obtention of parameters, frequency range and the balance between accuracy and computational effort. The first conclusion is that current research is mainly focused on the vertical behaviour with less attention paid to the lateral performance. Moreover, it is concluded that further research is needed to include non-linearities of the bellow and to consider fluid-structural interaction; this would allow improving the model of vertical behaviour and evaluating better the lateral performance of the pneumatic system. FEM models might be an interesting tool that allows performing a more complete analysis of air springs (combining different physics, including material non-linearities, considering the real shape of the bellow and reinforcing fibres, etc) favouring the comfort analysis and including the lateral dynamics of the air spring.

空气弹簧是铁路客车二次悬架的主要部件。本文的目的是回顾现有的空气弹簧建模技术，以检查在过去十年中为可用模型设定的挑战是否已经得到满足。从以下角度总结和讨论了不同空气弹簧模型（唯象/力学、热力学、解析、FEM）的优缺点：模型精度、多物理场相互作用、结构和材料非线性的影响、参数的获取、频率范围以及精度和计算量之间的平衡。第一个结论是，目前的研究主要集中在垂直行为上，而对横向表现的关注较少。而且，得出的结论是，需要进一步研究以包括波纹管的非线性并考虑流体-结构相互作用；这将允许改进垂直行为模型并更好地评估气动系统的横向性能。FEM 模型可能是一个有趣的工具，它允许对空气弹簧进行更完整的分析（结合不同的物理特性，包括材料非线性，考虑波纹管和增强纤维的真实形状等），有利于舒适性分析并包括横向动力学的空气弹簧。