Publishable Final Activity Report - transport …transport-research.info/sites/default/files/project/documents/... · interoperability which aims at opening any railway network to

FP6-031-260 | Publishable Final Activity Report 1 | 14

Contract No. FP6 – 031260

SAFEINTERIORS

Train Interior Passive Safety for Europe

Specific Target Research Project (STREP)

PRIORITY 6

Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystems

Sustainable Surface Transport

Publishable Final Activity Report

Period covered from 11.07.06 to 10.07.10 Date of preparation 01.08.10

Start date of the project 11.07.06 Duration 48 months

Project coordinator name Roberto Palacin

Project coordinator organisation name UNEW Revision Final


Contents

1 Project Execution ........................................................................................................ 3

Project objectives. ...................................................................................................... 3

Work performed ......................................................................................................... 5

Main conclusions ....................................................................................................... 9

Consortium ............................................................................................................... 13

2 dissemination and use ............................................................................................... 14


1 Project Execution

Project objectives.

SAFEINTERIORS aims at improving interoperability as well as increasing the

capacity of the railway transport mode by maximising safety and well-being of

drivers, passengers and crew. It develops new strategies and a new framework for

interior passive safety design using modern computer based simulation tools and

innovative test and measuring cost efficient devices.

This interior passive safety initiative will provide a systems approach by combining

and exploiting in a cost efficient and optimised manner the already well developed

railway structural crashworthiness, closely linked with primary collisions events, with

injury biomechanics, directly associated with secondary collisions.

The new test methods and measuring devices, as well as the new design methodology

and proposed requirements will generate recommendations for the evolution of

European Voluntary Standards to be followed by railway operators, manufacturers

and interior components suppliers. In this way, a novel and more comprehensive

passive safety framework will contribute to significantly reducing the number of

injuries and fatalities and the costs they generate in terms of health treatments and

insurance as well as impact on the society‟s perception of railway accidents. This

passive safety complete framework is particularly needed in the context of

interoperability which aims at opening any railway network to any train.

The specific objectives of SAFEINTERIORS are to:

Bring together European manufacturers, operators, suppliers and academia

involved in railway activities to build up a common research project that

will significantly contribute to reinforce interoperability and

standardisation throughout the European rail community;

Review the current design practices and the conclusions of previous projects

relevant to rail interiors passive safety, appraise the compatibility with other

relevant regulations, carry out an analysis of existing accident data and to

select the crash pulses required to analyse the vehicle interiors isolated from

the structures and structural devices for energy management during the crash

Identify the relevant injury criteria for different body parts of the rail

vehicle occupant taking into account the selected crash scenarios and the

interior layout of rail vehicles, identify measuring devices to quantify injury

for the body parts relevant to rail occupant analysis and to define relevant

test procedures that can be used during the interior design and during

interior passive safety validation of solutions.

Identify operational and commercial requirements. Define the most

relevant interior features and define requirements for the layouts including

seats, bulkheads and other relevant interior equipment. Identification of

potential for use of emerging technologies and new materials. To develop

new design solutions, manufacture test layers to be tested and validated.

Appraise the requirements and validation procedures and propose

recommendations for future standards and regulations.

Explore the suitability of the proposed interior passive safety

methodologies as applied in retrofitting in existing rail vehicles.


Expected End Results

An appraisal of state-of-art design practices with respect to rail vehicle

interiors and an identification of gaps in the design practices, including a

clear definition of ergonomic measures and requirements for People with

Reduced Mobility (PRM, from now onwards) and an identification of other

functionalities of vehicle interiors.

An analysis of accident statistics collected by the rail operators and other

European agencies with the aim to select representative accident risks and

identify the relevant injured body parts.

Identification of relevant crash pulses to be used throughout the project.

Different crash pulses will be considered corresponding to increasing and

cost effective levels of passive to be engineered in the overall vehicle design.

New and relevant injury criteria for rail vehicle occupants based on

biomechanical data obtained in more recent research work.

New appropriate measuring devices capable of reproducing the loading on

the dummies and on the vehicle interior elements. Bio-fidelity of the devices

used to predict human injury in various types of experiments simulating real-

world vehicle collisions will be assessed.

New test procedures and methods and a full validation program involving

correlation between experimental methods and computer model outputs.

New design specifications for interior equipment, furniture and layouts

including requirements for PRM with the aim to achieve cost efficient totally

friendly interiors with improved survival requirements.

New and advanced test layers of interior layouts including new furniture

and interior elements will be manufactured and physically tested to assess

new designs and demonstrate their feasibility.

Recommendations for TSI and CEN: Relevant technical data will be

identified in order to propose the passive safety requirements for interior

layouts and relevant furniture as applied to the defined classes of vehicles

The following diagram illustrates the SAFEINTERIORS approach;

Fig. 1. SAFEINTERIORS approach.


Work performed

SAFEINTERIORS established a framework for the development of the rail vehicle

interior passive safety taking into account current standards and best practice in the

railway industry, regulations and customer requirements that compete to define

vehicle interior configurations and the statistics of railway accidents in order to

clearly identify the gap that needs to be filled. These global objectives are split into

partial objectives, to which the different sub-tasks are associated.

Items of vehicle interior furniture, components and assemblies where it was

reasonably foreseeable that occupant injury would arise in collision conditions

(substantiated by the RSSB database of such occurrences) were identified in a

systematic manner.

SAFEINTERIORS also identified practices adopted by vehicle manufacturers and

equipment suppliers which supported the principles of occupant passive safety.

The research concluded that there were gaps between the risks to occupant safety

identified by vehicle surveys and the regulations and manufacturers guides.

A detailed analysis was carried out on:

Passive safety issues relevant to interior design and the function and

functionality requirements of train furniture were examined;

Regulation that exists in other transport industries and having cognisance for

the rail environment, evaluate if such measures were appropriate to improve

passive safety in trains;

The uniqueness of the rail environment and the optimisation of space to meet

societal demands for accessibility, flexibility, facility and comfort that attracts

passengers from other, arguably less inherently safe or less environmentally

benign, forms of transportation, and consider with regard to passive safety;

Examined potential for conflict between absolute safety in collision conditions

and general fitness for purpose of a railway carriage as a mass-transit vehicle;

Examined relevant issues that arise from normal ergonomic design criteria and

from statutory requirements relating to the carrying of mobility-impaired

persons (PRM);

Examined other possible conflicts between designing for passive safety in an

accident situation, and the need to meet general health and safety requirements

for staff to perform their normal duties without discomfort or repetitive

physical strains;

A database of accidents was developed based on accident information available from

within the European rail community and this was analysed. The most comprehensive

data came from GB where information had been gathered by RSSB. This information

allowed occupant injury to be evaluated by severity, causation, and frequency.

Other transportation industries injury databases were studied. Where appropriate best

practice was identified. This established relevant injury mechanisms, the risk of injury

and the secondary impact against the surface or object they impact.


This database and its structure provides a methodology for standardisation of post-

accident injury data collection to facilitate comparison exercises and provide the

means to relate physical accident events with trauma and injury through sound

biomechanics methodologies. Using this information a unified database was compiled

and populated with the relevant information.

Fig. 2. Accident data collection structure

This research and previous EU projects have demonstrated that there are significant

safety benefits in providing vehicle structural, crash energy management systems, for

a limited number of collision scenarios. These structural requirements are designed to

maintain vehicle interior volume and by doing so, ensure structural intrusion and

collapse does not lead to occupant fatality.

SAFEINTERIORS examined reference collisions (pr EN 15227), vehicle categories,

their mass and the resultant change in speed. It recommends the use of a single crash

pulse for the project, by which interior configurations and furniture can be evaluated

and injury severity reduced.

SAFEINTERIORS has provided a tool kit, which includes a defined set of injury

criteria with limits, test devices, and test methods, to assess potential occupant injury

levels in all foreseeable rail applications.

Fig. 3. Summary of test devices available to measure recommended injury criteria


A comprehensive methodology for specifications of functional requirements has been

developed. It involves: Identification of layouts from current vehicles, Quantitative

analysis of layouts, Identification and assessment of hazards against: existing

solutions, knowledge for reducing injuries, Requirements from service and vandalism.

Identify Occupant Scenario(for example standing / seated occupant)

Determine secondary impact scenario(for example head impact to grab pole)

use simulation to define the occupant reference scenario(consider worst case and most probable case)

use simulation to investigate input parameters and determine an equivalent impactor scenario

(launch method / impactor type, speed, initial position, etc)

Define occupant scenario output tolerances and check impactor scenario input parameter sensitivity

Define impactor test input parameter tolerances

Fig. 4. methodology included in the SafeInteriors “Tool Kit”

From this analysis a major conclusion is that transverse seating and fixed tables are

the main components for providing occupant containment, therefore optimising their

characteristics is the most effective approach for reducing injury severity.

In the design, testing and validation phases a number of case scenarios representative

of vehicle interior layouts were selected to demonstrate the procedures adopted in the

project. A systematic procedure for the evaluation of the vehicle interiors in terms of

its passive safety features was carried out and suitability of new test methods,

measuring tools and injury criteria for railway secondary impacts was assessed.


Design scenario Investigation Results

Inline seating with

cantilever (application

in the project with more

serious injuries expected on the window side) or

conventional seats (more typical configuration).

Energy absorption with longitudinal

stiffness and fixing

strength.

Estimation of the

injury level.

Head and leg impacts, with neck injury.

Improvement by providing

energy absorption at the knee level and padding

located on the upper part of

the seat or with smoothed shapes.

Low back seating for

passenger vehicles other

than long distance trains (passengers travelling in

the opposite direction of

travel or in the case of a rear impact).

Evaluation of the

whiplash injury values

of seated passengers in relation to the seat

height and stiffness.

Reduction of the relative

motion between head and

thorax.

Improvement by increasing

the seat back height and a

padded seat back (back seat thickness and

stiffness).

Inline seating with

backrest tables representing one of the

major risks of

abdominal impact.

Evaluation of the

abdomen injury of seated passengers

according to the table

absorption, shape, size, and stiffness.

Estimation of the other injury criteria.

Improvement of the table

design (decrease of the length, smooth of the

edges, introduction of

hinges or deformation mechanisms) and the pitch

(distance between the seats).

Application of the

improvements of the previous inline seating

scenario with cantilever or

conventional seats.

Grab poles in standing

areas of metros, trams

and interurban trains.

Estimation of the potential for energy

absorption in relation

to stiffness and fixing strength.

Estimation of head

and/or chest injuries resulting from an

impact on the pole (or

specific studied object).

Improvement of the pole design (influence of the

diameter and the thickness

with respect to the stiffness and aggressiveness) with

the possibility of energy

absorption (friction, deformation).

Bay seating with fixed

table for passenger

vehicles mainly used on long distance trains and

regional traffic.

Evaluation of thorax

and abdomen injury of

seated passengers in relation to the table

absorption, shape,

size, and stiffness.

Estimation of the loss

of survival space and other injury criteria.

Improvement of the table

design resulting from an

enlarged impact surface (limitation of the impact

force and the

corresponding injuries) or

the reinforced sidewall

attachment (respect of the survival space of opposite

passengers) with the

application of possible controlled deformation.

Table 1. Summary of scenarios assessed by SafeInteriors and their main outcomes


The project has used the Hybrid III „RS‟ ATD (Anthropomorphic Test Devices, i.e

test dummies), a rail specific ATD for testing of rail interiors previously developed by

RSSB. The RSSB ATD is uniquely adapted for rail vehicle occupant kinematics and

Injury mechanisms. SAFEINTERIORS delivered a numerical model of this device to

allow the cost effective development of Rail vehicle components.

SAFEINTERIORS has developed a family of validated models for the representative

layouts of the train interiors and a process for passive safety design and validation of

interior layouts.

The accident database, the tool kit to assess potential occupant injury levels in the rail

environment, the proposal of representative limited number of layout/scenarios and a

robust methodology for design and validation constitute the basis for a swift adoption

of passive safety technical requirements and implementation of the necessary

standards at European level.

The structure of the SAFEINTERIORS consortium, involving 7 countries, 3 railway

operators, the 3 leading train manufacturers in Europe and the Railway manufacturers

association, 2 test houses, 2 railway interior equipment providers, 3 universities and a

railway Safety Agency, has provided the right expertise in the development of the

research and the conditions for a quick market uptake of the results of the

SAFEINTERIORS project.

Main conclusions

The work performed by SAFEINTERIORS has produced very interesting results that

can be grouped into the following outcomes:

An accident database and structure providing a methodology for

standardisation of post-accident injury data collection;

A tool kit including a defined set of injury criteria with limits, test devices,

and test methods, to assess potential occupant injury levels in all

foreseeable rail applications;

A family of validated models for the representative vehicle interior layouts

as well as a process for passive safety design and validation of such

interior layouts.

The results of SAFEINTERIORS have been processed with a focus on delivering

valid and viable recommendations. Exhaustive details of these results and

recommendations can be found throughout the deliverables produced but especially

on D6.1 & D6.2. As a summary, the following recommendations can be made:


Key target Main recommendation

Passenger containment Compartmentalisation and limitation of both global motion (impact velocity) and local motion (relative deformation and rotations).

Use of grabpoles, grabhandles or handholds (mainly for standing occupants).

survival space Stop any components or part of components from impacting occupants.

Control the interactions between occupants.

Allow enough space for easy egress from seats and doorways.

Fixings and containment

of features

Components and accessories must remain attached with an associated control of the deformation

during the collision (limitation to the material ultimate stress in dynamic conditions: no rupture or fracture surface).

Containment of features such as heavy luggage or unsecured objects must be ensured.

Aggressiveness of features Limit the effects of the shape of rigid objects or surfaces exposed to occupants during impact (with

sufficient radius, areas, thickness, soft material covering).

Limit the effects of the stiffness of rigid objects or surfaces exposed to occupants during impact

with energy absorption devices/materials or fuse/sliding/pushing/folding elements (care must be taken of kinematics modification).

Injury Criteria The reference injury criteria corresponds to the levels from moderate to severe of the general

population of 50th percentile adult rail passengers (based on the AIS1 classification system). The 6

year old child criteria based on geometrical scaling is also available.

interior improvements must aim at achieving results within the moderate thresholds of the AIS

scale where possible. Alternatively, results should not exceed the serious limit (AIS level 03).

The specific Head Injury Criterion (HICd) has to be applied for standing occupants.

Egress Ability Consideration of the folding tables, rotating armrest, survival space for seated or standing

occupants must be taken in order to facilitate egress.

Principe of the validation After the identification of the reference configurations (with the crash pulse and occupant

surroundings definition), tests and numerical simulations on well defined and calibrated arrangements and equipments are used to verify the previous assessment criteria.

For cost efficiency reason, it is recommended to limit the number of configurations tested for the

evaluation of the occupant protection; use of numerical simulations on validated models.

Design scenarios

The result of the current design practices, the accident analysis and the identification of the need

for improvement highlight that the transverse seating (in the travelling or opposite direction of the

train) and tables (fixed bay tables and backrest tables) are the main components for providing occupant containment, therefore optimising their characteristics is the most effective approach for

reducing injury severity. Additional areas to improve safety identified in the project correspond to

the impacts of the standing occupant (grab poles) and the similar approach for the limitation of components aggressiveness (stiffness and shape).

The selected scenarios are:

1. Inline seating with cantilever or conventional seats (forward impact):

Reduction of head and leg impacts, with neck injury.

Improvement by providing energy absorption at the knee level and padding located on the upper part of the seat or with smoothed shapes.

2. Low back seating (rear impact):

Reduction of the relative motion between head and thorax (whiplash).

1 AIS: Abbreviated Injury Scale. This classification was originally developed for the automotive sector: 01-minor/02-moderate/03-Serious/04-Severe/05-Critical/06-

potentially non-survivable


Improvement by increasing the seat back height (minimum of 30 mm over de centre of gravity) and a padded seat back (Back Seat Thickness and Stiffness).

3. Inline seating with backrest tables:

Reduction of the abdomen injury

Table design improvements (decrease length, smoothing of the edges, introduction of hinges or deformation mechanisms) and pitch improvements (distance between seats),

with the issue of the abdomen criteria application in numerical simulations and tests.

4. Grab poles in standing areas:

Reduction of the head and/or the chest injuries resulting from an impact on the pole.

Pole design improvements (influence of the diameter and the thickness with respect to the stiffness and aggressiveness) with the possibility of energy absorption (friction,

deformation, …).

5. Bay seating with fixed table:

Reduction of the thorax and abdomen injury with respect of the survival space.

Improvement of the table resulting from an enlarged impact surface (limitation of injuries), with a width more than 50 mm; or the reinforced sidewall attachment (respect

of the survival space of opposite passengers), with the application of possible controlled deformation.

The number of design scenarios depend on the necessity of their consideration in a specific vehicle

interior design (defined with the project “tool kit”).

Crash Pulse The recommended values for deceleration and final speed are(inc. tolerances to limit their change):

Deceleration equal to minimum 5g, with a maximum of 6g

Final speed equal to minimum of 5m/s, with a maximum of 6m/s.

Occupant size/location

For the application of the assessment criteria in the reference design scenarios, the following main

principle shall be applied :

Use a 50%ile male occupant (75 kg) for the injury criteria assessment ;

Use a 95%ile male occupant (100 kg) for the survival space respect, fixings and

features strength, containment capacity and egress ability.

The aggressiveness of the features can be dealt with the use of the different range of population to

define the impact zones to verify and improve if necessary (adult from 5th%ile female to 95th%ile

male and child of 3 and 6 years old).

For a cantilever double seats, the study presents slightly higher injury level for the occupant seated

alone on the window side (not sensitive for other configurations).

For the standing occupant, the head impact on the grabpole corresponds to 1.75m from the floor (50th percentile, with a head angle at 24.5°).

Tests

The general Anthropomorphic Test Device (ATD) required for testing is the Hybrid III, with

specific application of hybrid III RID (Rear Impact Dummy) in the case of rear impact (low back seat) and Hybrid III RS in the case of lower chest or abdominal impact (backrest or fixed tables).

The sled tests used for seated occupant must represent the design scenarios, with the corresponding

number of dummies, seats (fully equipped with the representative pitch/gap) and components (tables, for instance) on the test rig under dynamic acceleration (the fixture is rigid and the layout

generally fixed on).

The ATD must be positioned for the tests in a precise, transferable, recordable, and reproducible

manner, to ensure test repeatability and allow a good validation between physical testing and

virtual modelling (project procedure).

Others recommendations on the measuring instruments calibration (with temperature effects), filtering, the connecting cabling interference, adjustment of the dummy joints, pre-test and post-

test elements have to be verified.

For the standing occupant, a gravity or drop rig can be used with a NHTSA Free- Motion Headform (FMH) of 4.55 kg (same dimensions as a 50th percentile human head). A particular

procedure must be applied to guide the headform almost until its impact (repeatability of the

impact position, velocity, angle) and for the free flight at the time of impact. This simple test can be extended to the assessment of the other equipments used in railway transportation.


Numerical simulations

Existing commercial software such as ABAQUS, LSDYNA, MADYMO, PAMCRASH, RADIOSS are sufficiently reliable and provide results close to those of reality for biomechanical

simulations (with direct or indirect approach on MADYMO dummy use or not).

For the calibration of the numerical models, the reliability of the kinematics, impacts, components behaviour and injury criteria of the corresponding tests have to be verified (with the corresponding

initial positioning method).

The application of the dummies must take into account the sensitivity of management of multiple contacts creating sources of numerical error, the sensitivity of the frictions and contacts on the

kinematics, the numerical stability for the dummy positioning, …

For the impact of the standing occupant on the grab pole, the numerical model is equivalent to the NHTSA Free-Motion Headform, without necessary modification.

To carry out analysis of the bio-mechanical criteria with a user-friendly interface, the

biomechanical criteria analysis tool CIMBA (Criteria Injury Matrix for Biomechanical Analysis) of the project can be used under “Excel” format.

Accident database The methodology for collecting data and recommended datasets presented in the project can then

be used when reporting accidents (information sent already to the European Rail Agency).

PRM recommendations The recommendations on the protection of the Persons of Reduced Mobility (PRM) in relation to surrounding train furniture, has to consider the application of the current regulation for PRM

(mainly true for the larger clearways and free spaces required to ensure accessibility).

The priority seating with respect to the PRM TSI can be used to define the “Worst case” as the wider spacing which maximises the dummy head velocity in all testing and so increases the

possible injury levels.

The excursion of the passenger in a wheelchair has to be limited by:

Their back to the direction of travel: the back features have to limit both the neck

rotation over the back of the wheelchair and the severity of head impact.

Restrained system in case of forward facing: the abdominal injury risk must be limited

and the structure of the wheelchair must resist collapse under the restraining forces.

Table 2. Synthesis summary of SafeInteriors main recommendations

The SAFEINTERIORS findings show that transverse seating and fixed tables are the

main components for providing occupant containment, therefore optimising their

characteristics is the most effective approach for reducing injury severity.

It would seem that there are existing test devices available to measure all of the

recommended injury criteria. The direct consequence of this is that no new devices or

development of existing devices are needed, and there will be no device development

and efforts should be allocated to critique the available devices and develop the

testing methodologies for rail applications. For some injury criteria a number of test

devices are available to measure them, and it will be necessary to decide which tools

are the most appropriate.

ATD‟s are mainly suitable for sled tests which represent a single, well defined

accident scenario. For example, this could be a seated occupant, or one standing close

to an impact hazard such as a screen or pole.

SAFEINTERIORS has shown that standing passengers make up a significant

proportion of occupants on some types of service. In addition, train crew must stand

to carry out their duties. Injury assessment must therefore address both seated and

standing postures. The question of how to use ATD‟s in this situation is open. A few

ATD‟s can be positioned in a standing posture, but they are not necessarily the best

candidates if other features are considered. SAFEINTERIORS delivered a

methodology whereby this and similar issues could be resolved, it found that by

conducting a simple headform test, the case of standing occupants could be

adequately assessed.


Consortium

The SafeInteriors consortium is formed by the following partners:

Project Partner Short name Country Type

Bombardier Transportation BT UK IND

Alstom Transport Alstom France IND

Association of Train Operating Companies ATOC UK ORG

University of Bolton Bolton UK UNI

Fundación para la Investigación y Desarrollo en

Automoción

CIDAUT Spain RES

Deutsche Bahn AG DB Germany IND

Grupo Antolin Transport GAT France SME

Institut National de Recherche sur les Transports et leur

Sécurité

INRETS France RES

Instituto Superior Técnico IST Portugal UNI

MIRA Ltd. MIRA UK RES

Rail Safety and Standards Board. RSSB UK ORG

Siemens AG Transportation Systems SIEMENS Germany IND

Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF) SNCF France IND

The European Railway Industries (UNIFE) UNIFE Belgium ORG

VÚKV a.s. VUVK Czech

Republic

IND

Newcastle University UNEW UK UNI

Contact

For more information, please contact SafeInteriors Coordination:

Roberto Palacin Project Coordinator

Newcastle University

NewRail-Centre for Railway Research

School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering

Stephenson Building

NE1 7RU

UK

Telephone: +44 (0) 191 222 6829/5821

Mobile: +44 (0) 7976906711

FAX: +44 (0) 191 222 5821

E-mail: mailto:[email protected]

More information is available at http://www.Eurailsafe.net

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.eurailsafe.net/


2 dissemination and use

As a result of the activities carried out during the project, a number of outcomes have

been identified as potential exploitable knowledge. The following table gives an

overview of the results deemed exploitable at this stage.

Exploitable

Knowledge (description)

Exploitable

product(s) or

measure(s)

Sector(s) of

application

Timetable for

commercial use

Patents or other

IPR protection

Owner &other

partner(s)

involved

Rail accidents

database and

related work

Structure for the

consistent

collection of

injury data

following an

accident allowing

valid comparison

between different

events

Vehicle design,

interior

component

design,

bioengineering

From project

completion

none All

Occupant

postures

assessment

Key reference tool Vehicle design,

interior

component

design,

bioengineering

From project

completion

To be defined MIRA & all

Reviewed rail

injury criteria

Key reference tool Vehicle design,

interior

component

design,

bioengineering

From project

completion


Measuring

devises

assessment

Key reference tool

potentially paving

the way to next

generation of

ATDs

Vehicle design,

interior

component

design,

bioengineering

From project

completion


In addition, the remaining results produced by the project are essential to be used as

basis in future research as recommended in the further work section of deliverable

D6.1.

Of the results identified in the above table, the accident database and structure has

been already handed over to the European Rail Agency (ERA) as they have

responsibility over accident investigations.

A general presentation has been used to disseminate widely the results and main

conclusions of the project. This has included the final event where these were

presented to representatives of the EC and the ERA.

Documents

Publishable Final Activity Report - transport …transport-research.info/sites/default/files/project/documents/... · interoperability which aims at opening any railway network to