Design and optimization of bearing type energy absorbing structure at the front end of railway vehicle underframe

In the process of train collision, the front end of vehicle underframe is prone to deformation, while the existing underframe is mainly designed as a bearing structure without energy absorption capacity, and therefore, the design of rail vehicle underframe as a load-bearing and energy absorption integrated structure plays a very important role in train passive safety protection. The topology optimization method was used to improve the crashworthiness in the front end of the underframe of a prototype vehicle under frontal collision. According to the topology optimization results, two crashworthiness schemes of without filled square tube four longitudinal beam design scheme and foam filled square tube four longitudinal beam design scheme were proposed, and it was compared with the original scheme. The results show that the peak value of collision force of the two optimization schemes is lower than that of the original design, and the collision force of the four longitudinal beam is increased to 2.730 35 MN at the beginning of the design of the four girders. The peak collision is 51.51% lower than that of the original design, and the energy consumption of four longitudinal beams of the foam filled square tube is increased by 12.19% than the four longitudinal beam. © 2022, Central South University Press. All right reserved.