A Crush Zone Design for an Existing Passenger Rail Cab Car

Martinez, Eloy; Tyrell, David; Rancatore, Robert J.; Stringfellow, Richard; Amar, Gabriel

doi:10.1115/imece2005-82769

Cited by 19 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…• A pushback coupler mechanism • Deformable anti-climbers • Non-deformable anti-climbers • Integrated end frame • Energy absorbers • Engineer's compartment [9] A similar design was developed for non-cab end crush zones.…”

Section: Crush Zone Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crash Energy Management Crush Zone Designs: Features, Functions, and Forms

Priante

Martinez

2007

ASME/IEEE 2007 Joint Rail Conference and Internal Combustion Engine Division Spring Technical Conference

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On March 23, 2006, a full-scale test was conducted on a passenger train retrofitted with newly developed cab and coach car crush zone designs. This test was conducted as part of a larger testing program to establish the degree of enhanced performance of alternative design strategies for passenger rail crashworthiness. The alternative design strategy is referred to as Crash Energy Management (CEM) where the collision energy is absorbed in defined unoccupied locations throughout the train in a controlled progressive manner. By controlling the deformations at critical locations, the CEM train is able to protect against two very dangerous modes of deformation: override and large scale lateral buckling.The CEM train impacted a standing locomotive-led train of equal mass at 30.8 mph on tangent track. The interactions at the colliding interface and between coupled interfaces performed as designed. Crush was pushed back to subsequent crush zones, and the moving passenger train remained in-line and upright on the tracks with minimal vertical and lateral motions.This paper evaluates the functional performance of the crush zone components during the CEM test. The paper discusses three areas of the CEM consist: the leading cab car end, which interacts with a standing locomotive; the coupled interfaces, which connect the CEM non-cab end; and the trailing cab car end, which interacts with the attached trailing locomotive. The paper includes a description of the crush zone features and performance.The pushback coupler must absorb energy in a controlled progressive manner and prevent lateral buckling by allowing the ends of the cars to come together. The deformable anticlimbers are required to resolve non-longitudinal loads into planar loads through the integrated end frame while minimizing the potential for override. The energy absorbers must absorb energy in a controlled progressive manner. The engineer's space must be preserved so that the engineer can ride out the event. The passenger space must be preserved so that the passengers can ride out the event. The prototype CEM design presented in this paper met all the functional design requirements. This paper describes how the crush zones perform at three different interfaces. Areas for potential improvements include the design of the primary energy absorbers, the placement of the engineer's compartment, and the interaction between the last coach car and the trailing locomotive.

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Section: Crush Zone Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crash Energy Management Crush Zone Designs: Features, Functions, and Forms

Priante

Martinez

2007

ASME/IEEE 2007 Joint Rail Conference and Internal Combustion Engine Division Spring Technical Conference

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“…An explicit FEA of the locomotive collision was performed using ABAQUS/Explicit [9,10]. An FEA model was developed to evaluate the performance of the design of a crush zone for an existing passenger rail cab car in [11,12]. A full-rail vehicle explicit finite element model using FEA package LS-DYNA was applied to carry out the train crashworthiness analysis [13][14][15][16][17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling and analysis of the crush zone of a typical Australian passenger train

Sun

Cole

Dhanasekar

et al. 2012

Vehicle System Dynamics

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In this paper, a three-dimensional nonlinear rigid body model has been developed for the investigation of the crashworthiness of a passenger train using the multibody dynamics approach. This model refers to a typical design of passenger cars and train constructs commonly used in Australia. The highenergy and low-energy crush zones of the cars and the train constructs are assumed and the data are explicitly provided in the paper. The crash scenario is limited to the train colliding on to a fixed barrier symmetrically. The simulations of a single car show that this initial design is only applicable for the crash speed of 35 km/h or lower. For higher speeds (e.g. 140 km/h), the crush lengths or crush forces or both the crush zone elements will have to be enlarged. It is generally better to increase the crush length than the crush force in order to retain the low levels of the longitudinal deceleration of the passenger cars.

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“…In the present context, mechanical engineering design refers to the utilization of mathematics, material science, and engineering mechanics principles to develop analysis tools that can be used to optimize potential designs for enhanced structural performance. This approach has been used in other railroad applications; specifically in the development of crush zones for passenger equipment [4][5][6], a state-of-the-art cab car end frame design [7], and improved locomotive crashworthiness features [8].…”

Section: Improved Design Development Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved Tank Car Design Development: Ongoing Studies on Sandwich Structures

Jeong

Tyrell

Carolan

et al. 2009

2009 Joint Rail Conference

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The Government and industry have a common interest in improving the safety performance of railroad tank cars carrying hazardous materials. Research is ongoing to develop strategies to maintain the structural integrity of railroad tank cars carrying hazardous materials (hazmat) during collisions.This paper describes engineering studies on improved tank car concepts. The process used to formulate these concepts is based on a traditional mechanical engineering design approach. This approach includes initially defining the desired performance, developing strategies that are effective in meeting this performance, and developing the tactics for implementing the strategies. The tactics are embodied in the concept. The tactics and concept evolve through engineering design studies, until a design satisfying all of the design requirements is developed.Design requirements include service, manufacturing, maintenance, repair, and inspection requirements, as well as crashworthiness performance requirements.One of the concepts under development encases the pressurized commodity-carrying tank in a separate carbody. Moreover, this improved tank car concept treats the pressurized commodity-carrying tank as a protected entity. Welded steel sandwich structures are examined as a means to offer protection of the commodity tank against penetrations from impacting objects in the event of a collision. Sandwich structures can provide greater strength than solid plates of equal weight. Protection of the tank is realized through blunting of the impacting object and absorption of the collision energy. Blunting distributes impact loads over a larger area of the tank. Energy absorption reduces the demands on the commodity tank in the event of an impact. In addition, the exterior carbody structure made from sandwich panels is designed to take all of the in-service loads, removing the commodity tank from the load path during normal operations.Design studies described in this paper focus on the protection aspect of using sandwich structures. Studies are conducted to investigate the influence of different parameters, such as sandwich height and core geometry, on the forcedeformation behavior of sandwich structures. Calculations are carried out numerically using nonlinear finite element analysis. These analyses are used to examine the crashworthiness performance of the conceptual design under generalized impact scenarios.

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A Crush Zone Design for an Existing Passenger Rail Cab Car

Cited by 19 publications

References 6 publications

Crash Energy Management Crush Zone Designs: Features, Functions, and Forms

Crash Energy Management Crush Zone Designs: Features, Functions, and Forms

Modelling and analysis of the crush zone of a typical Australian passenger train

Improved Tank Car Design Development: Ongoing Studies on Sandwich Structures

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