Improved tank car safety research

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Proceedings of the 2007 ASME Rail Transportation Division Fall Technical Conference
• Creators:
  Jeong, David ; Jeong, David Y. ; Jacobsen, Karina ; Martinez, Eloy
• Corporate Creators:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.) ; United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Collisions Hazardous Materials Impact Tests Prototype Tests Railroad Cars Railroad Crashes Railroad Safety Tank Cars
• Publication/ Report Number:
  RTDF2007-46013
• Resource Type:
  Proceedings
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• Abstract:
  Three recent accidents involving the release of hazardous
  
  material have focused attention on the structural integrity of
  
  railroad tank cars: (1) Minot, ND, on January 18, 2002; (2)
  
  Macdona, TX, on June 28, 2004; and (3) Graniteville, SC, on
  
  January 6, 2005. Each of these accidents resulted in fatalities.
  
  Research is being conducted to develop strategies for
  
  improving railroad tank cars so they can maintain tank integrity
  
  in severe accidents. A collaborative effort called the Next
  
  Generation Rail Tank Car (NGRTC) Project intends to use
  
  these research results to help develop improved tank car
  
  designs. Dow Chemical Company, Union Pacific Railroad, and
  
  Union Tank Car Company are the industry sponsors of the
  
  NGRTC Project. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)
  
  and Transport Canada participate in the NGRTC project
  
  through Memoranda of Cooperation. FRA and the Pipeline and
  
  Hazardous Materials Safety Administration intend to use these
  
  research results to support rulemaking.
  
  The approach taken in performing this research is to define
  
  the collision conditions of concern, to evaluate the behavior of
  
  current design equipment in these scenarios, and to develop
  
  alternative strategies for increasing the maximum impact speed
  
  for which tank integrity is maintained.
  
  The accident scenarios have been developed from a review
  
  of accidents and are intended to bound the range of main-line
  
  accidents that can lead to a release of hazardous material from a
  
  tank car. The accident scenarios and collision modes have been
  
  used to define car-to-car impact scenarios. These car-to-car
  
  impact scenarios define the conditions under which the
  
  commodity must be contained. The impact scenarios are being
  
  used to evaluate the integrity of current design and improved
  
  design tank cars.
  
  Full-scale impact tests are also being conducted, to help
  
  validate modeling of the baseline equipment. The models have
  
  been refined based on the test results. The models are now
  
  being applied to develop the improved equipment designs.
  
  This paper describes the overall research framework and
  
  provides an overview of the research done to date, as well as
  
  the planned efforts.
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  Federal Railroad Administration Volpe Center
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:f2a230106a08b9294b4349e8ce43d0454d7d19bc7a8a79d59752847f5e76726286a4a73a704a7ba0a0b6446f947f1a063b0622f8323d953452de3ad63cb13b21
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/9905/dot_9905_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.95 MB ]