Research on the Override Phenomenon in Railway Collision Accidents

In this paper, a joint simulat ion method based on nonlinear FEM and MBD is proposed. Firstly, the force-deformation character of single vehicle is analysed using nonlinear FEM software Dytran. Then, override simulations of two train units in frontal collision are carried out using multi-body dynamics. Simulation results indicate that the pitching motion of vehicles has great effect to the overriding phenomenon. It also depends on several factors, such as collision mass, pitching frequency, height of the center of mass above the rail level. Besides that, it is shown in this paper the overriding phenomenon is more sensitive to variations in pitching frequency and height of the center of mass, compared to the factor of collision mass.Copyright © 2015 by ASME