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Vehicle Crash Testing
Bombardier, Poland
The object of the measurement is the so-called ‘SAFE TRAIN’
project. This project involves train collisions conducted by companies such
as Bombardier, DB, SIEMENS AG, as well as other European railway institutes
and companies.
So far, three crash tests have
been performed under the umbrella of the DB and Bombardier at a
test track of the Polish train institute CNTK near the city of Wroclaw
(Breslau) in Poland.
The background of the test is an European Union-wide effort to improve
and standardize safety specifications applying to trains in crashes or
similar accidents. Further aims have been to study the exact effects of train
crashes as well as to evaluate and approve train model designs. The measurement was
performed by a group of engineers from Bombardier.
Within those objectives, an additional reason for this particular study
was to test a damper
mechanism between two cars. The dampers worked as shock absorbers and had the
job of preventing the derailment of the cars.
4 µ-MUSYCS instrumenting the measurement car
Nested
in a metal housing directly upon the third car, packed and protected by a
wooden frame and lots of foam materials, 4 µ-MUSYCS measurement systems
were used by the Bombardier team. The system had to withstand a frontal crash
of 54 km/h.
During the crash the entire system had to acquire and to
store data from 24 channels. The required sampling rate was 10 kHz per
channel. The necessary signals included displacement,
acceleration, force and strain gauges as well as some digital signals.
Measurement and video preparations before the crash.
At the
same time, high-speed cameras captured every movement
between the two crashed cars and observed the shock absorbers (dampers)
between them.
The dynamic force of over 80,000 kg
weights on the rail is not easy to withstand. The shock-proof measurement
system consisted of 4 identical imc µ-MUSYCS-S systems:
shock resistant up to 30g during the measurement, 9 - 36 V DC uninterruptible power
supply, 4 channel DC bridge amplifier with software selectable analog filters,
Online FAMOS for online digital filtering,
PCMCIA-hard disk, and operating in self-start-mode (without PC).
After the crash the buffers are destroyed
Post-processing and data-evaluation were performed with the
help of the off-line data analysis tool FAMOS.
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