Impact characteristics of a composite energy absorbing bearing structure for railway vehicles

To satisfy the requirements for passive safety protection during railway vehicle collisions, a front-end energy absorbing structure for a certain railway vehicle was designed with its collision performance evaluated based on integral analysis of the characteristics of a thin-walled metal structure and an aluminium honeycomb structure. A finite element model of the energy absorbing structure was established in ANSYS/LS-DYNA, and structures using three types of aluminium honeycomb (Honeycombs 1, 2, and 3, respectively) were assessed by numerical analysis. The results indicated that the entire structure generated orderly and stage-by-stage deformation according to the process by which energy dissipation had been designed. The larger the plateau stress acting on the honeycomb, the greater the contribution made by the honeycomb to the overall energy dissipation of the structure. The total energy dissipation was also improved with increased honeycomb structure plateau stress.