Novel Lightweight Construction Concepts and Methods for Car Bodies

Abstract

Lightweight design has an important role for rail vehicles. To achieve a significant mass reduction, the consistent usage of all lightweight design strategies is necessary. For this reason, an innovative method has been developed at the Institute of Vehicle Concepts at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), supported by Bombardier Transportation; this method follows an integral lightweight design approach. By using this methodical procedure, the mass of car bodies and train concepts can be estimated without defining the design. In this way it is possible to compare different train and car concepts in relation to their lightweight design potential in an early phase. The car and train concept with the greatest lightweight design potential defines the global dimensions of the related car body shell. The car body shell is subjected to topology optimisation using the loads of relevance for the design. The resulting load-bearing structure comprises load paths adapted to the force flows. These load paths form the basis for an Innovative mass-optimised, modular car body design. The highly loaded car body segment over the running gear is explicitly designed. It is dimensioned by ideally adapting the wall thickness of the structural elements to the loads. The structural behaviour of the design is verified using a real demonstrator.