The influence of train type, car weight, and train length on passenger train crashworthiness

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Proceedings of the 2005 Joint Rail Conference
• Creators:
  Priante, Michelle ; Tyrell, David ; Perlman, Benjamin
• Corporate Creators:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.) ; Tufts University
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration. Office of Research and Development
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Crashworthiness
  • Crash injury research
  • Crash tests
  • Crash victim simulation
  • Speed
  • Weight
  • Locomotives
  • Cabs (Vehicle compartments)
  • Velocity
  • Collisions
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  RTD2005-70042
• Resource Type:
  Proceedings
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  American Society of Mechanical Engineers ; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Abstract:
  Crash energy management (CEM) is a type of equipment ; design that is intended to protect occupant space during a ; collision. Structures at the front and back of each car act as ; crumple zones that absorb the collision energy. CEM is ; intended to distribute the damage from a collision throughout a ; consist to unoccupied areas. This paper describes how factors ; that vary in the operation of passenger trains affect the ; crashworthiness performance of conventional and CEM trains. ; Crush and secondary impact velocity are introduced as ; measures of crashworthiness performance. The collision ; scenario selected for this study includes a standing locomotive led ; freight train and a cab led passenger train with an initial ; velocity. The passenger train contains either all CEM or all ; conventional equipment, and is either a multiple unit (MU) ; train with no locomotive, or push-pull train. The influence of ; consist type (MU or push-pull,) car weight, and the number of ; cars in a train-to-train crashworthiness are explored. ; The crashworthy speed is that speed at which all of the ; passenger train occupants are predicted to survive in the ; selected collision scenario. For both conventional and CEM ; equipment, MU trains have slightly higher crashworthy speeds ; than push-pull trains. Trains with heavier cars have lower ; crashworthy speeds for both conventional and CEM equipment. ; Longer trains also have lower crashworthy speeds, although the ; decrease crashworthy speed is less for CEM trains than for ; conventional trains. In all cases evaluated, the CEM trains have ; significantly higher crashworthy speed than the conventional ; trains; the crashworthy speed of CEM trains is typically twice ; that of conventional trains, and in some cases is nearly three ; times greater.
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• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/9852/dot_9852_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 245.14 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center ; Federal Railroad Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:6b613108c932e138dfe8ea4672c7e13a9b85bc435ff12794ada016a3efab9651