Development of crash energy management designs for existing passenger rail vehicles

Details

• Alternative Title:
  2004 ASME international mechanical engineering congress
• Creators:
  Martinez, Eloy ; 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:
  • Railroad cars
  • Passenger cars
  • Commuter cars
  • Crash tests
  • Crash injury research
  • Crashworthiness
  • Crash victim simulation
  • Vehicle compartments
  • Fracture tests
  • Crash energy management
• Publication/ Report Number:
  IMECE2004-61601
• Resource Type:
  Proceedings
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• Abstract:
  As part of the passenger equipment crashworthiness research, ; sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration and supported by ; the Volpe Center, passenger coach and cab cars have been tested in inline ; collision conditions. The purpose of these tests was to establish ; baseline levels of crashworthiness performance for the conventional ; equipment and demonstrate the minimum achievable levels of ; enhancement using performance based alternatives. ; The alternative strategy pursued is the application of the crash ; energy management design philosophy. The goal is to provide a ; survivable volume where no intrusion occurs so that passengers can ; safely ride out the collision or derailment. In addition, lateral buckling ; and override modes of deformation are prevented from occurring. ; This behavior is contrasted with that observed from both full scale ; tests recently conducted and historical accidents where both lateral ; buckling and/or override occurs for conventionally designed ; equipment. ; A prototype crash energy management coach car design has been ; developed and successfully tested in two full-scale tests. The design ; showed significant improvements over the conventional equipment ; similarly tested. The prototype design had to meet several key ; requirements including: it had to fit within the same operational ; volume of a conventional car, it had to be retrofitted onto a previously ; used car, and it had to be able to absorb a prescribed amount of energy ; within a maximum allowable crush distance. To achieve the last ; requirement, the shape of the force crush characteristic had to have ; tiered force plateaus over prescribed crush distances to allow for crush ; to be passed back from one crush zone to another. The distribution of ; crush along the consist length allows for significantly higher ; controlled energy absorption which results in higher safe closing ; speeds.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/9860/dot_9860_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.57 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center ; Federal Railroad Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:33aec738752964f2bd55c681fafd7850ecc50053a50191473129cd3a25045d85