Transportation

Vehicle Crashworthiness Projects

• Assessment of proposed design modifications to improve the crashworthiness of the Mk1 passenger rail vehicle for a group of British operators.

• Collision dynamics (multi-body) analysis of a new train with crush zones to support operating conditions for a Canadian firm.

• Investigation of deformation and fracture conditions for aluminum extrusions in crash environments as part of an investigation of the ICE3 for a German government agency.

• Investigation to establish crashworthiness requirements for light rail vehicles for New Jersey Transit.

• Development of a new energy absorber based on the ‘sleeved column’ technology for a materials firm.

• Several projects for the Volpe Center, including: assessment of various crashworthiness features for freight locomotives; investigation of the mechanics of override and lateral buckling for passenger trains; development and full-scale testing of a cab car end beam component; design and fabrication of cab car end frames for full-scale testing; development of a crash energy management crush zone for commuter and intercity operation.

Rail Mechanics Projects

• A characterization of the mechanical properties of rail steels by laboratory experiments for the Volpe Center as part of a multi-laboratory program.

• Failure analysis including experiments, of a rail end bolt hole crack that failed by fatigue crack growth.

• Critical review of wear under rolling/sliding conditions of railroad wheels and rails for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

• Development of a model to describe the creation and progression of vertical split heads in rails for the Volpe Center.

• Simulation of the dynamic loading at a bolted rail joint for the Volpe Center.

Other Systems Projects

• Review and analysis of proposed methods of setting allowable defect sizes in girth welds for gas transmission pipelines for the Department of Transportation.

• Determination of optimal materials, fabrication procedures and testing techniques to satisfy a DOT specification on pressurized cylinder for a cylinder manufacturer.

• Structural failure analysis of the frames and bodies in a fleet of city buses for the operating company.

• Investigation of the conditions under which multiple site damage occurs in aircraft fuselage lap splices for the Dept. of Transportation.