Full-scale two-car impact test: comparison of measured and model results

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Proceedings of 2004 ASME/IEEE joint rail conference
• Creators:
  Rancatore, Robert ; Mayville, Ronald ; Baldwin, Mark
• Corporate Creators:
  TIAX LLC ; Simula Technologies, Inc.
• Corporate Contributors:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.) ; United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Crashworthiness
  • Impact tests
  • Crash injury research
  • Crash victim simulation
  • Collisions
  • Passenger cars
  • Commuter cars
  • Dynamic tests
  • Speed measurement
  • Accelerometers
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  RTD2004-66032
• Resource Type:
  Proceedings
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  American Society of Mechanical Engineers ; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Abstract:
  The Volpe National Transportation Systems Center is ; conducting research into the crashworthiness of rail vehicles in ; support of the Federal Railroad Administration's Office of ; Research and Development. The approach taken has focused on ; the review of accidents, development of analytical tools and ; performing full-scale testing. A series of inline full-scale ; impact tests have been performed using conventional passenger ; cars. Recent full-scale testing included two instrumented ; coupled conventional passenger cars impacting a fixed barrier ; at 26 mph. The cars were instrumented with accelerometers, ; strain gages and string potentiometers. From these ; measurements, car translations, rotations, relative ; displacements and coupler forces were calculated. A rigid body ; dynamics model of the two-car configuration was developed ; and used to design the test. In order to improve the collision ; dynamics models of passenger cars, the results from this test ; are being used to refine that model. ; This paper describes the two-car impact test, the reduction ; of data collected during the test and the refined collision ; dynamics model. Post-test refinements allow the model to more ; accurately simulate the vertical and lateral motions of the cars, ; including the timing of the lateral buckling of the cars. The ; post-test model also more accurately simulates the climbing of ; the impact car as it crushes. Comparisons between the refined ; model results with the measured data are presented for the ; motion of the center of gravity of the cars, coupled car ; interactions and forces, and lateral buckling.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/9862/dot_9862_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 331.73 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center ; Federal Railroad Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:1d192bbf7eb440eac42fcedd2d6fa574b03cc06fd2e0828ad5d4267b3f9fd28f