Crashworthiness Analysis and Energy Absorption Enhancement of a Passenger Rail Vehicle

Interests in increasing the trains’ speed of travel, generated higher degrees of wariness about the possible sever accidents. Since, the passenger wagon car body needs to be a safe compartment for its occupants therefore; great attention should be paid on its design. In this study, a passenger car body that is originally made in Eastern Germany and its chassis are modeled to simulate the crash analysis according to EN 15227 standard. The results are then used in order to optimize the wagon chassis design. This investigation is performed in two steps. In the first step, which consists of simulation of the original wagon model, it is found that due to the lack of efficiency in crash force absorbent, some modifications in the design are needed. In the second step, the original chassis is modified and by implementing honeycomb cores as energy absorbing devices, higher energy absorption is achieved. Furthermore, impact stresses in mid-section of the chassis considerably decreased. The proposed energy absorbing device can be implemented in the front end of the chassis to provide a crashworthy structure. The results show that by modifying the under-frame the amount of energy absorption is increased by 46%, and also, the amount of maximum stress in the center of the under-frame is reduced by 66%.