Study on the crashworthiness of rail vehicles

Abstract

Crashworthiness requirements are appearing more frequently in rail vehicle technical specifications. These requirements represent an effort to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities to rail passengers in collisions. There are relatively few published studies which provide methodologies for analyzing the crash behavior of rail vehicles. This paper presents car-body crash test results. Crash behavior is shown to be predictable using Kawasaki's analysis method, which employs LS-DYNA.