F. García Piñeiro, M. Peinado, E. Ochoa
In recent years, the railway sector has been developing high-responsibility lighter components (such as the running gear frame), made from composites (mainly CFRP) to meet the new challenges of the sector. However, these components may be more sensitive to damage from impacts compared to conventional metallic ones. In high-speed train operations, elements located on the lower parts of the train are exposed to impacts with ballast stones that are lifted as the train passes (v > 200 km/h), leading to damage (sometimes internal and not visible) that can limit the use of these materials. During the development of CFRP components by Talgo, the damage caused by these types of low-velocity impacts has been analyzed and evaluated. These impacts can cause damage that requires more or less complex technologies (such as ultrasound) for evaluation, which are difficult to implement in maintenance operations. From the studies conducted on CFRP materials (compliant with the EN-45545 standard for fire, smoke, and toxicity), it has been found that acceptable approaches can be used, with easily implementable measures in routine inspections, to estimate the damage caused by ballast stone impacts. In these analyses, it was observed that: a) It is possible to estimate the impact energy level through the depth of the surface damage, b) it is possible to estimate the size of the internal damaged area based on the energy level, and c) it is possible to determine the residual strength based on the size of the internal damaged area. These results allow us to establish both acceptance requirements and criteria for the repair and rejection of materials
Keywords:
Diff selection: Mark the radio boxes of the revisions to compare and hit enter or the button at the bottom. Legend: (cur) = difference with latest revision, (prev) = difference with preceding revision, m = minor edit.
Accepted on 07/07/25Submitted on 11/04/25
Licence: Other
Views 0Recommendations 0
Are you one of the authors of this document?