ASSESSMENT OF THE SAFETY OF PASSENGER CARS IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY ROLLOVER ON THE RAILROAD TRACKS

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to assess the safety of passenger cars in case of an emergency rollover on the body of railroad tracks. The paper introduces a method for predicting injury of railway transport passengers as a result of swinging over the wagon on the body of railroad tracks. The method of research is mathematical modeling of scenarios of swinging over the wagon on a flat bottom or earth tramp of the railway track. A model of a passenger compartment has been developed, which is supplemented with models of a roomette, hand luggage and an anthropometric dummy. The originality of the work is the use of mannequin models for an accident with the rollover of a compartment car on the body of the railroad tracks and obtaining data on the interaction of fit models and a compartment car. The result of the study is the reported values of possible injury to passengers during an emergency rollover of a passenger car. Namely, the values of the head injury criterion, cervical vertebrae, breast and hips of the crash test dummy have been obtained. In comparison of the two considered scenarios of swinging over the wagon, the value of the head injury criterion for overturning the car on an inclined surface is 15% higher, the neck injury criterion is 30% higher, and the hip and chest injury criterion is 23% higher for mannequins on the upper shelves of the compartment due to their interaction with hand luggage. The obtained values do not exceed critical ones. The most dangerous positions of the mannequin model in the compartment of the car are revealed. Conclusions concerning the sufficient safety of the passenger car are formed and recommendations for the development of additional technical solutions to improve the safety of passenger cars are given.