Sandwich panels are a good construction element if used in the right way. Herein, they have reduced the weight of the car body by 600-700 kg, or reduced the weight of the specific structure by approximately 50%. It was, however, tough to fulfill all requirements of the corrugated sheets, especially the thickness requirement. The sandwich panel multi-functionality has not been considered in this paper. The sandwich panels could likely replace other, non-structural, elements as well as fulfilling mechanical requirements. The transverse strength and stiffness of the sandwich panels derived in this paper could perhaps be enough to replace the underlying framework. This would increase the available vertical design space to include the space that the current framework occupies. In this additional space, the core of the sandwich panel could be optimized to have specific thermal or acoustic insulating characteristics. This would add to the complexity of the task, by adding additional requirements, but the potential benefits would also increase. This additional space would however not have changed the outcome for the face sheets in this study. For the roof and floor structure, it was the inplane extensional stiffness that was the defining requirement, for which the core material and thickness has negligible effect. The total life cycle cost of using high-performance materials such as carbon fibre epoxy prepregs in rail applications needs to be thoroughly evaluated. This includes all synergy effects that can arise due to the significant weight reduction. From an environmental perspective, the potential weight saving from carbon fibre makes it the best alternative compared to, for example, steel and aluminium with respect to overall energy savings during the complete life cycle of the rail vehicle, which would make train travel an even cleaner transportation alternative than it already is today.
Substitution of corrugated sheets in a railway vehicle's body structure by a multiple-requirement based selection process
2014
15 Seiten, Bilder, Tabellen, 21 Quellen
Article (Journal)
English