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Railroads

Framework for Wheel Life Model – Phase I

Researchers developed a model to predict the life of a freight railroad car wheel due to rolling contact fatigue, crack initiation and growth leading to fracture. The Phase I effort includes a literature survey, an estimation of hoop residual stress from manufacturing process, and the effects of...

Short Line Safety Institute: 2021 Systematic Review

The Short Line Safety Institute (SLSI) is dedicated to the continuous improvement of safety and safety culture across all short line and regional railroads in the United States. Strengthening a railroad’s safety culture may result in less frequent or severe accidents and create a safer working...

F40 CEM Locomotive and M1 Passenger Car Impact Test

An impact test with a F40 locomotive and a M1 passenger car was conducted to evaluate the performance of the vehicles under dynamic conditions. The locomotive was retrofitted with crash energy management (CEM) components – including a push-back coupler (PBC), deformable anti-climbers, and a...

Validation of Scaling Laws for Fully Developed Passenger Rail Car Fires

The focus of this effort was to confirm the capability of the scaling laws to predict full-scale fully-developed compartment fire heat release rates (HRR) based on reduced-scale experiments. A total of 17 compartment fire tests were conducted in this effort consisting of 14 unique configurations...