Citation

Lu Z, Li B, Yang C, Zhao H, Xu P, Yao S, Peng Y, Zhang D. Int. J. Crashworthiness 2017; 22(5): 488-502.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13588265.2017.1281080

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study proposes the design strategy of a new collapse zone structure for railway vehicles and explores its crashing performance through numerical simulation and experiments. Starting from the one-dimensional (1D) collision analysis of two train sets, the force-displacement characteristics of each vehicle-end can be expressed in the form of a non-linear spring and the energy absorption distribution for each vehicle interface was achieved. Then, the present paper moves on to the three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis (FEA) for the detail design of the collapse zone structure which primarily consists of front beams, rolled hollow sections (RHSs), channels and collapse initiators. The 3D resultant force-displacement response matches well with 1D characteristics. Additionally, the energy absorption of 3D computation is larger than the required value. Finally, dynamic impact tests were conducted to validate the crashworthiness of the designed energy-absorbing structure. The results showed that all the critical indicators are within 10% of both methods, which satisfies the correlation requirements of EN15227. The deformed shapes are also comparable and with reasonable agreement between the test outcomes and FEA predictions. Therefore, the design strategy is well performed and the new designed collapse zone structure is recommended as a potential absorber of impact energy.

Language: en

Keywords

crashworthiness; finite element analysis; collapse zone structure; Design strategy; dynamic impact test