Experimental and numerical study on the lightweight design of load-bearing energy absorption structure for subway train

The load-bearing underframe is widely utilized on the crashworthiness design of subway trains. However, studies on load-bearing underframes mainly focused on conceptual design and structural optimization, and didn't consider the combination of bearing loads during the normal operation and absorbing impact kinetic energy under collisions. In addition, the traditional load-bearing underframe for subway trains is mainly made of stainless steel, which has a relatively large weight and cannot meet the requirement of lightweight design. To address these limitations, this paper presents a novel lightweight aluminum alloy load-bearing underframe with the alternative thin-walled energy absorption component, which can both satisfy the function of bearing loads and energy absorption. Firstly, the impact tests and numerical simulations are conducted to compare the crashworthiness of the energy absorption component, i.e., the thin-walled square tube made of S304 (abbreviated as S3N4) and aluminum alloy 5083P-O (abbreviated as A3N4). The result shows that S3N4 has higher energy absorption and mean crushing force, and A3N4 is 56.94 % lower than S3N4 in initial peak crushing force and 53.79 % higher in special energy absorption. Then, the aluminum alloy thin-walled tube is adopted on the novel load-bearing underframe and the parameter study on the wall thickness and number of diaphragms for the energy absorption component is conducted. The result reveals that the 5083P-O thin-walled tube with 5 mm wall thickness and 4 diaphragms can provide the stable and ordered deformation mode and high energy absorption. Finally, a real vehicle impact test is conducted to verify the crashworthiness of the optimized load-bearing underframe, which shows that the deformation modes and mechanical responses are consistent with the numerical simulation. The proposed aluminum alloy load-bearing underframe energy absorption structure can be adopted on subway trains.