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:
  • Tank cars
  • Railroad safety
  • Railroad cars
  • Hazardous materials
  • Railroad crashes
  • Collisions
  • Prototype tests
  • Impact tests
• 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.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/9905/dot_9905_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.95 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center ; Federal Railroad Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:f2a230106a08b9294b4349e8ce43d0454d7d19bc7a8a79d59752847f5e76726286a4a73a704a7ba0a0b6446f947f1a063b0622f8323d953452de3ad63cb13b21