Performance Efficiency of a Crash Energy Management System

Details

• Creators:
  Carolan, Michael E. ; Jeong, David ; Perlman, A. Benjamin
• Corporate Creators:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Collisions
  • Railroad safety
  • Crashworthiness
  • Fracture tests
  • Dynamic structural analysis
  • Dynamic tests
  • Railroad cars
  • Passenger cars
  • Railroad accidents
  • Transportation--Safety measures
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  JRCICE2007-40064
• Resource Type:
  Proceedings
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  American Society of Mechanical Engineers ; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Abstract:
  Previous work has led to the development of a crash energy ; management (CEM) system designed to distribute crush ; throughout unoccupied areas of a passenger train in a collision ; event. This CEM system is comprised of crush zones at the ; front and rear ends of passenger railcars. With a consist made ; up of CEM-equipped cars, the structural crush due to a collision ; can be distributed along the length of the train, crushing only ; unoccupied areas and improving the train's crashworthy speed ; as compared with a conventional train in a similar collision. ; This paper examines the effectiveness of one particular ; CEM system design for passenger rail cars. The operating ; parameters of the individual components of the CEM system are ; varied, and this paper analyzes the effects of these variations on ; the behavior of the consist during a collision. The intention is ; to determine what modifications to the components, if any, ; could improve the crashworthiness of passenger railcars beyond ; the baseline CEM design without introducing new hazards to ; passengers. ; A one-dimensional, lumped-mass model of a passenger ; train impacting a heavy freight train was used in this ; investigation. Using this model of a collision, the force-crush ; behavior for each end of each car in the impacting consist was ; varied. The same force-crush characteristic was applied to each ; car end on the passenger train. ; The four components of the CEM system investigated were ; the draft gear, pushback coupler, primary energy absorbers, and ; occupied volume of the train car. The paper presents selected ; parameters of particular interest, such as the strength ratio of the ; primary energy absorber to the pushback coupler and the ; average strength of the occupied volume. ; The objective of this work was to ascertain the sensitivities ; of the various parameters on the crashworthy speed and to help ; optimize the force-crush characteristic. This investigation ; determined that modifications could be made to the baseline ; characteristic to improve the train's crashworthy speed without ; creating new hazards to occupants.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/9504/dot_9504_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 495.58 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:144506f90d5c00aa21656e090bed7d6dfa0a5c49376af6754aeceb76b41b4e6aa50b5ed7283a8910515027b49326176637e46096ddc834d609848e18643fd8ac