Evaluation of Occupant Volume Strength in Conventional Passenger Railroad Equipment

Details

• Creators:
  Carolan, Michael E. ; Perlman, Benjamin ; Jeong, David
• Corporate Creators:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Finite element method
  • Structural analysis
  • Railroad cars
  • Passenger cars
  • Collisions
  • Occupant protection devices
  • Compression tests
  • Load tests
  • Finite element method
  • Structural analysis (Engineering)
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• Publication/ Report Number:
  RTDF2008-74026
• Resource Type:
  Proceedings
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• Abstract:
  To ensure a level of occupant volume protection, passenger ; railway equipment operating on mainline railroads in the ; United States must be designed to resist an 800,000-lb ; compressive load applied statically along the line of draft. An ; alternative manner of evaluating the strength of the occupied ; volume is sought, which will ensure the same level of ; protection for occupants of the equipment as the current test, ; but will allow for a greater variety of equipment to be ; evaluated. ; A finite element (FE) model of the structural components ; of a railcar has been applied to examine the existing ; compressive strength test and evaluate selected alternate testing ; scenarios. Using simplified geometric and material properties, ; a generic single-level railcar model was constructed that ; captured the gross behaviors of the railcar without excessive ; processing time. ; When loaded, the carbody structure exhibits some single ; beam-like behaviors. Application of the existing 800 kip ; compressive load results in a significant bending moment as ; well as significant compressive forces. The alternative load ; cases examined show that a larger total compressive force may ; be distributed across the end structure of the railcar and result ; in similar stress levels throughout the structural frame as ; observed from application of the conventional proof load.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/9496/dot_9496_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 291.29 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:734209ade1a749ae4c01a398cbe097e368027634fa69d313506eefe0365e84ba8256e9df737a5d8380df29d436dcaa5a23816b011896a49a1ce6393679a7a070