Implementing railway vehicle dynamics simulation in general-purpose multibody simulation software packages.

•General-purpose multibody simulation (GPMBS) software packages cannot be directly employed to simulate railway vehicle dynamics but have a lot of inherent advantages compared with specialized railway vehicle dynamics simulation software. This paper proposes a framework to make it possible to use GPMBS software packages to simulate railway vehicle dynamics.•A multi-language supported loose coupling method is presented for integrating the self-developed force element programs into GPMBS software packages.•A strategy combing the top-down approach and the sub-mechanism feature is recommended to construct the railway vehicle dynamics design and simulation model.