A Study on the Structural Fracture of Body Structure in Railroad Car

An evaluation was carried out by applying a load to the underframe of the freight car to determine the structural strength of the carbody of a newly manufactured freight car for transportation. This study is aimed at evaluating the safety of the underframe of the freight car under the maximum load conditions. The freight car for use in rail freight was designed mainly with SM490A steel and ASTM A441 steel for production. The carbody for rolling stock is a principal structure supporting major underframe equipment and freight. Thus, strength evaluation of this structure is very important. Both structural analysis and loading test were performed under the loading condition. Prior to evaluating structural strength, finite element method software was used for structural analyses of stress distribution in a carbody of freight car. The strain gages were attached on the carbody based on the FEM results. A vertical load test, compressive load test, measurement of deflection amount and a natural frequency measurement test were conducted.