This paper examines the effectiveness of one particular CEM (crash energy management) system design for passenger rail cars. The operating parameters of the individual components of the CEM system are varied, and this paper analyses the effects of these variations on the behaviour 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 behaviour 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 optimise 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.
Performance efficiency of a crash energy management system
2007
11 Seiten, 18 Bilder, 4 Tabellen, 12 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch
JRC/ICE2007-40064 Performance Efficiency of a Crash Energy Management System
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2007
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