Dynamic Analysis of High Speed Rail-Vehicle Collisions

In the event of a collision between a traveling, high speed train and a vehicle, the scale of human fatality and property damage can increase substantially if the train derails from its track after impact. Hence, it is important to identify the conditions and factors that may potentially lead to derailment in the event of a train-vehicle collision incident at a highway rail grade crossing. This understanding is crucial to the design of safer rail crossings and tracks, and the development of operating standards for rail system, which is the chief purpose of this study. In the present paper, the multi-body dynamic modeling technique is applied to simulate train-vehicle collisions under various scenarios. The derailment coefficient result is calculated to compute the probability of derailment that provides a direct measure of the propensity towards derailment following an impact. Key results of the studies with various parameters are presented.