Liquefied natural gas tender crashworthiness research

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Proceedings of the ASME IEEE ASCE 2015 Joint Rail Conference
• Creators:
  Tyrell, David
• Corporate Creators:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration. Office of Research and Development
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Liquefied natural gas
  • Alternate fuels
  • Tenders
  • Crashworthiness
  • Collisions
  • Simulation
  • Impact tests
  • Dynamics
  • Design standards
  • Accident scenarios, Tender designs
• Publication/ Report Number:
  JRC2015-5815
• Resource Type:
  In Proceedings
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  American Society of Mechanical Engineers ; American Society of Civil Engineers ; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Abstract:
  Research is being conducted to develop technical ; information needed to formulate effective natural gas fuel ; tender crashworthiness standards. This research is being ; performed for the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA’s) ; Office of Research, Development, and Technology, and ; intended to facilitate industry efforts to use natural gas as a ; locomotive fuel. Strategies to assure crashworthiness during ; moderate accidents, such as train-to-train collisions at speeds ; up to 40 mph, are being evaluated. ; This research applies the approach FRA has used to ; develop technical information on locomotive, hazmat tank car, ; and diesel fuel tank crashworthiness. There are four primary ; tasks: ; 1. Definition of collision scenarios ; 2. Evaluation of traditional designs ; 3. Evaluation of alternative designs ; 4. Recommendation of effective crashworthiness strategies ; The tender scenarios have been drafted from reviews of ; freight train accidents and of scenarios developed for ; locomotives, hazmat tank cars, and fuel tanks. From these ; reviews, five scenarios were selected. These scenarios are ; intended to bound the range of collisions that a tender may ; experience, are being used to evaluate the crashworthiness of ; traditional tender designs, and will be used to evaluate ; alternative design tenders. The five candidate scenarios are: ; 1. Train-to-train collision ; 2. Grade-crossing accident ; 3. Tender derailment and rollover ; 4. Impact into tender tank shell during derailment ; 5. Impact into tender tank head during derailment ; As part of previous research on locomotives and passenger ; equipment, a range of crashworthiness analysis techniques ; were developed. These include simplified techniques, which ; can be performed rapidly and provide essential results, and ; detailed computer simulations which provide a wealth of ; information. The crashworthiness performance of a ; hypothetical tender design has been evaluated using simplified ; techniques. Simplified techniques include quasi-static crush ; analysis of structural elements and lumped-parameter analysis ; of train dynamics. The results suggest that efforts to enhance ; crashworthiness should principally be directed toward the trainto- ; train scenario. Work is ongoing to develop strategies for ; improving tender crashworthiness. ; This research is being conducted cooperatively with the ; Association of American Railroads (AAR). The research ; results are being shared with the AAR’s Natural Gas Fuel ; Tender Technical Advisory Group (NGFT TAG). The NGFT ; TAG is developing industry standards, including ; crashworthiness requirements, for revenue-service natural gas ; fuel tenders. There is a companion paper which describes ; crashworthiness research sponsored by AAR, including ; detailed computer simulations of tender crashworthiness. This ; paper describes development of scenarios and simplified ; analyses of tender crashworthiness.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/12182/dot_12182_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.26 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:0e921df38fbe5f2aa3f7431e14ca90936f0f47898b9901e7be2991948d981db5