A Numerical Evaluation of Protection Strategies for Cab Car Crashworthiness

Abstract The operator and passengers in cab cars are particularly vulnerable to collisions with objects or with other trains because of their proximity to the point of collision. We present one part of a larger study in which we examined several strategies for improving the protection afforded to the operator and the passengers in cab car collisions. These strategies include: strengthening key cab-end structural elements, such as corner posts, collision posts and end beams; locating the operator between the collision posts rather than to one side of the control cab; and implementing crush zones into the ends of the cab as part of a crash energy management design for the entire train. Here we focus on the first of these strategies, evaluating the effectiveness of strengthened cab-end structures through explicit dynamic finite element-based calculations simulating the crush behavior of the cab car. There calculations were made for conditions representative of a number of collision scenarios based upon recent accidents, including several oblique collisions. The results of these calculations suggest that such strengthening can significantly increase the tolerable collision speeds that can be withstood without compromising the operator and passenger volumes.