Rollover crashworthiness analysis of a railroad passenger car

Abstract

Rollover of railroad passenger cars is one of the most serious accidents having high rates of injuries and fatalities. Therefore, the railroad passenger car structures should satisfy the rollover crashworthiness requirements in order to protect the occupants. In this paper, rollover crashworthiness of a railroad passenger car called ‘N13-type’ used by Turkish State Railways is investigated. To assess the rollover crashworthiness, rollover simulations of the full scale and detailed passenger car models onto a rigid ground are completed by using a non-linear explicit finite element code, Abaqus. The numerical model is validated with static and modal experimental measurements before running rollover analyses of the railroad passenger car. Good agreement is observed between tests and finite element results, which indicate that the numerical model accurately represents the real structure. Simulations are performed in accordance with the regulation of ECE R66. Based on this standard, two different rollover scenarios are considered. In the first scenario, lateral rollover simulation is performed at the standard angular velocity due to ECE R66 regulation. The second scenario is performed at the double of this angular velocity to investigate the crashworthiness behaviour under exaggerated conditions. As a result of the analyses, it is observed that the residual space remains undamaged during and after the rollover, and passenger car is able to pass the required regulations.

Keywords:

• railroad vehicle
• rollover
• crashworthiness
• finite element method

Acknowledgements

This research is supported in part by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under the grant number 105G123. The authors would like to thank Turkish Wagon Industry (TUVASAS). The authors also would like to thank anonymous reviewers for the useful comments.