Main Report: Full Scale Grade Crossing Impact Test.pdf

Appendices: Full Scale Grade Crossing Impact Test Appendices.pdf

FRA sponsored a research team from Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) to execute a grade crossing side impact test of a heavy highway vehicle (dump truck) into a liquified natural gas (LNG) fuel tender at the Transportation Technology Center (TTC) in Pueblo, CO, on September 22, 2021. A team from Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe) conducted computational analyses to plan for the test. This report documents the development of the test procedures and setup and describes both the FE and the lumped-mass model used for pre-test planning. It outlines the measured results from the test to evaluate the crashworthiness of an LNG fuel tender and compares the test measurements and outputs from the numerical analyses. Finally, the report describes the subsequent post-test analyses performed to address the variations between the pre-test analyses and the actual test conditions. Appendices are available in a separate document.