Evaluation of Carbody Strength against Side Load

Abstract

In the 2005 railroad crash in Japan, a side impact severely damaged one carbody, suggesting the need to improve the crashworthiness of carbodies under such impacts. This paper reports on static and dynamic compression tests that were performed to evaluate carbody side strength using full-size partial carbodies, followed by finite element (FE) analyses performed under the same loading conditions as in the empirical tests. The numerical results obtained by FE analyses were consistent with the empirical results in terms of deformation of carbodies and load-time characteristics. The authors developed a method that uses FE analysis to evaluate the impact deformation behavior of a carbody subject to side loads. An example using this method is presented.