Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on the Passive Safety of Rail Vehicles

PDFProceedingsCollisionsPassenger carsCommuter carsRailroad carsCrashworthinessImpact testsFracture testsEnergy absorptionFinite element methodStructural analysisUnited StatesMayville, RonJohnson, Kent N.Tyrell, DavidArthur D. Little, Inc.John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)United States. Federal Railroad Administration. Office of Research and DevelopmentAGR-PASSENGERS-PASSENGERSNTL-RAIL TRANSPORTATION-Rail SafetyNTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-AccidentsNTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-Rail SafetyNTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-Vehicle DesignVolpe National Transportation Systems Center, Technical Reference CenterThere is currently an active program within the United States to improve the passive safety of train systems. In particular, the Volpe Center is supporting the Federal Railroad Administration\ue2\u20ac\u2122s research that includes numerous analytical studies and laboratory tests. The Center is managing a series of full-scale passenger car collision tests. Three tests ofconventional equipment have been completed, and two other tests are planned for the spring. After completion of these tests, the next phase will be to carry out full-scale collisions of passenger cars equipped with modern crashworthiness features, such as an integrated crash management system. Such systems, incorporating crush zones in vehicle ends, have been applied to passenger cars around the world, and have been shown to be highly effective in protecting car occupants from injury in a collision.The objective of the work reported here is to develop a detailed final design of a crash energy management system that can be installed into an existing passenger coach car and subjected to a full-scale collision test. Elements in the program are to develop and evaluate strategies for the proposed system, prepare and analyze a preliminary design, fabricate and test critical components of the design, and finalize the design in the light of test and analysis results. The end product will be detailed drawings for a design ready to be fabricated and installed on the selected test vehicle