Washington, DC

Crash Performance for Lightweight, High Speed Trains

Scope/Solutions
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Project Summary

Scope/Solutions

The high speed train industry relies on relatively lightweight equipment to conserve energy and to minimize the effects on infrastructure and rolling stock design. Recent crashworthiness recommendations presented by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Engineering Task Force (ETF) to improve collision safety could lead to increased train weight and the high speed train industry requested further evaluation. Working for the FRA, SGH evaluated existing technology and the resulting impact on the weight of the train.

For this project, SGH identified the existing systems listed below and assessed the effects of the higher level of performance on weight.

Occupied volume structure
Energy absorption systems and components
Coupler technologies, including pushback couplers
Anti-climbing systems
Interior components, including seats
Fire protection systems

SGH’s work on this project also included the following tasks:

Investigation of current lightweight train component technology in Europe and Asia
Investigation of lightweight technologies in other industries, including the aircraft industry
Finite element analysis to establish a relationship between crash performance and weight for vehicle strength, seat strength, and structural fire resistance