A railway-car has been researched based on the finite element analysis. There are researches for a lightweight railway-car. However, it is difficult to consider safety regulations and a lightweight body simultaneously. A design process is proposed for a large scale problem such as the railway-car. In this research, the design process for an aluminum railway-car body is introduced to reduce mass while the safety regulations are guaranteed. The proposed design process consists of three steps. They are the conceptual design using topology optimization, the discrete design with orthogonal arrays (DDOA) and the detailed design using size optimization. In topology optimization, the locations which should be reinforced are identified. The designers should redraw the initial models for the next step based on the results of topology optimization. In the DDOA, the optimum solutions are obtained by selecting the factors and levels considering the manufacturing process. Factors and levels can be changed according to the kinds of the vehicle, the manufacturing process, designed parts, etc. When the characteristic function is defined, the purpose of the design must be clear and accurate. In the final step, the mass of a railway-car body is reduced using size optimization. The passenger car among the various railway vehicles is designed using the proposed design process. Based on the safety regulations for a passenger car, the characteristic function for DDOA and the formulation for size optimization are generated. New rib shapes of a passenger car are obtained. The mass of a passenger car is decreased by about 14 percent than the mass of an existing a passenger car while the safety regulations are satisfied. The proposed design process is well developed for a large scale problem such as the railway-car body. There are many types of railway vehicles. The proposed design process is only applied to the passenger car. If the type of railway vehicle is changed, the safety regulations for the vehicle may be changed. Further research is needed to apply it to other railway vehicle problems. Based on the regulations, different characteristic functions for DDOA and different constraint functions for size optimization should be defined. In this research, the ribs of a railway-car are only designed.
A design process for a railway-car body with aluminium extrusion panels using structural optimization
2012
19 Seiten, 15 Bilder, 11 Tabellen, 19 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Datenträger
Englisch
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