The Volpe Center is supporting the Federal Railroad Administrations full-scale testing program to understand and improve rail vehicle crashworthiness. The objective of one of the sets of tests in this program is determining the behavior of cab car end structures in simulated grade crossing collisions. The project described in this report supported these tests by developing ready-to-fabricate designs for the ends of passenger cars to represent a State-of-the-Art (SOA) and a 1990s cab car design, both of which are primarily strength-based designs. The report includes a description of prior research on cab car crashworthiness, the requirements for the designs, the designs themselves and the analyses used to demonstrate that the designs meet the requirements. Also included is a comparison between strains measured from quasi-static load tests and from finite element analyses. The results of the project show that the SOA end frame provides substantially greater strength and energy absorption capability than the 1990s design with little penalty in weight.
Development of Conventional Cab Car End Structure Designs for Full Scale Testing. Rail Passenger Equipment Impact Tests
2006
94 pages
Report
No indication
English
Railroad Transportation , Transportation Safety , Metropolitan Rail Transportation , Crashworthiness , Railroad cars , Railroad card design , Transportation safety , Passenger rail vehicles , Testing programs , Rail vehicle crashworthiness , Cab car end structures , Grade crossing collisions , Volpe Center