Safety diagnosis of collided subway electric multiple units (EMUs)

Abstract

Engineering safety diagnosis of collided subway electric multiple units (EMUs) was conducted for safety assessment. Several advanced engineering analysis techniques including nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques and stress and structural analyses programs, were performed for better understandings and exploration of failure analysis and safety concerns. NDE techniques such as ultrasonic testing and magnetic particle testing, were used to detect manufacture-induced and/or in-service defects and collision-induced flaws, and measure the dimensions of deformed and non-deformed parts on damaged EMUs due to a rear-end collision. Moreover, stress and structural analyses using commercial I-DEAS software provided important information on stress distribution and load transfer mechanisms as well as the amount of damages during the crash. A good agreement has been found between structural analysis results and the results of actual damages in EMUs during crash. In this investigation, various advanced engineering analysis techniques for the safety analysis of subway EMUs have been introduced and the analysis results have been used to provide the critical information for the safety assessment of collided EMUs.