Dynamic simulation of railway vehicle occupants under secondary impact

Abstract

To study the dynamic response of a railway vehicle occupant during collision, a multi-car coupling collision model was set-up to obtain velocity and acceleration data for every car, and occupant secondary impact velocity (SIV) plots, which were applied to the car body – passenger compartment – dummy coupling model. Then the performance index results for the dummy, its governing movement laws, head acceleration response, and the relationship between performance index and SIV were obtained for each car by analysis under different conditions. The results indicated that both the head injury and thoracic cumulative 3 ms injury criteria increased with increasing SIV. The velocity of the dummy in Car 3 (moving) and Car 7 (static before impact) was greatest when the occupant faced a table: the corresponding head injury ratings were 669.9 and 606.0, respectively, and the thoracic ratings were 656.2 and 641.4 m/s².

Keywords:

• railway vehicle
• multi-car collision
• occupant secondary impact
• response law
• dynamic simulation

The present study was undertaken at the Key Laboratory for Traffic Safety on Track of Ministry of Education, Central South University. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 50175110) and the support from the graduate degree thesis Innovation Foundation of Central South University (no. 2009bsxt019).