My project is about railway vehicles energy absorbers and anticlimbing.

Due to rail vehicles' mass and its location with respect to the vehicle's underframe, inertial loads make colliding trains to pitch.

Anticlimber systems, interlocking features located at the front end of the rail vehicle, are often fitted in front of an energy absorber.

Thus, for the anticlimber to perform its function of resisting vertical loads without overriding, the suporting deformable structure, i.e. the energy absorber, must be stable.

Deformation tubes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkfqcoq2a1I , are stable under oblique loading, compared to thin-walled columns, which might fail catastrophically after a critical load angle has been reached.

Deformation tubes' stroke efficiency, i.e. stroke to overall length ratio, is poor when compared to thin-walled structures, stroke efficiency.

The project objective is then, either to:

• enhance the deformation tubes' stroke efficiency
• optimise the crush columns behaviour under oblique loading to fulfil the requirements of a rail vehicle crash

Main Supervisor:

Prof. Richard Dashwood

Contact Details

R dot Dashwood at warwick dot ac dot uk

Co-supervisors:

Dr Terry Williams

Contact Details

terry at oleo dot co dot uk

Dr Darren Hughes

Contact Details

D dot Hughes at warwick dot ac dot uk