Details:

Creators:
Llana, Patricia
Corporate Creators:
John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
Subject/TRT Terms:
[+]
Collisions Crashworthiness Finite Element Method Highway-railroad Grade Crossings Railroad Accidents Railroad Grade Crossings Standards
Publication/ Report Number:
RTDF2009-18030
Resource Type:
Proceedings
Corporate Publisher:
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Abstract:
In support of the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA)

Railroad Equipment Safety Program, American and European

grade-crossing collision scenarios were evaluated and

compared. Finite element analyses (FEA) were employed to

subject an FRA-compliant passenger car to grade-crossing

collision scenarios defined in both the proposed FRA Code of

Federal Regulations (CFR) and European Standard (EN)

15227. The proposed FRA collision scenario involved a single

car impacted by a cart. The cart had a punch mounted to it to

hit a specific post of the end frame of the car. The EN 15227

collision scenario involved a complete train consist impacting a

large deformable obstacle that approximates a lorry. The

analyses show that these collision scenarios, while both gradecrossing

scenarios, are very different not only in terms of the

impact object and the amount of initial kinetic energy involved,

but also in terms of how the car is loaded and deformed during

impact. The FRA scenario is shown to be easier to analyze as

well as easier to test than the EN 15227 scenario. Additionally,

the FRA scenario is safer to test because of the levels of initial

energy involved. The FRA scenario also provides clearer

metrics of success. The FRA-compliant car utilized in the

analyses and test conducted for this paper passed both FRA and

EN 15227 grade-crossing collision scenarios according to the

requirements for each respective standard. However, the

analyses show that despite both scenarios providing for energy

absorption in a grade-crossing collision, because the manner in

which the car is loaded and deformed (concentrated vs.

distributed) is different, the FRA performance standard and EN

15227 grade-crossing collision scenarios are not equivalent and

mutual compliance is not guaranteed.


Format:
PDF
Collection(s):
Volpe
Main Document Checksum:
[+]
urn:sha256:7cc406089532755284378b042b7111cdf867abbda4cb92ccbe8a70df5d357d38
Download URL:
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/9490/dot_9490_DS1.pdf
File Type:

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