FE numerical tests of railway wagon for intermodal transport according to PN-EU standards

Abstract. A special wagon, presented in the paper, can be used for intermodal transport of various types of vehicles. It enables transport of vehicles of 36 tons mass and height of 4m on the GB1 clearance height. An innovative wagon is equipped with a frame-support with marginal parts mounted on standard biaxial bogies and the central part lowered with a rotatable loading platform. The rotating part of wagon acts as a kind of platform, allowing truck to move through it during load/unload. During railway operation, this rotating platform is to become an integrated part of the wagon; the tailboards of the rotating part will be connected to the over-bogie part with the special locks. A unique concept of the wagon structure forced a design approach which was rather unusual for the rail industry. Since the design team aimed at very challenging demands of GB1 envelope and usage of standard bogies, the layout of the wagon had to be thoroughly examined in terms of its overall stiffness. Every major design change had to be simulated in order to accurately predict its influence on the whole wagon structure. FE analysis was used for numerical tests of such a wagon structure in different configurations. The calculations were carried out on the basis of PN-EN standards. Selected results of numerical tests of the prototype version of a such wagon for intermodal transports were presented in the paper. Key words: prototype railway wagon for intermodal transport, FE methodology of numerical tests, analysis of the wagon strength and dynamics simulations according to PN-EU standards. 1