The Railway Coupler Fatigue Analysis And Test Rig Design

At present, the freight train in our country develops with the goal of heavy haul and high speed. As result, the longitudinal force of the train and the longitudinal impact increase greatly. Coupler and draft gear system, as one of the most important components of the train, have the function of connecting locomotive and vehicles, transferring traction and alleviating the longitudinal impact, and so the request will be more and more high. With the opening of Datong-Qinhuangdao railway line in 2006, more and more heavy haul freight trains put into use. The working condition of the coupler draft gear become worse because of the significantly increase of capacity of train and the complex operation condition. According to the result of investigation and inspection, a large number of coupler produce many crack because of fatigue damage and finally break. As a result, the problem of the coupler strength and fatigue damage is taken into consideration seriously. This paper mainly research the coupler fatigue damage of freight train and combine the fatigue test research and simulation analysis of the coupler. Following works have been done in the paper.Firstly design the coupler fatigue test rig and fix the coupler draft gear with the test rig by some other designed frock. Design the coupler test scheme preliminary and make sure it is possible to conduct static strength and fatigue test of the coupler.Secondly take the No.17 coupler as the research object and establish the 3D model in Pro/E. Pre-process the 3D model in the software of Hypermesh and make the strength check of the coupler body and knuckle respectively in the finite element simulation software of ABAQUS. Determine the stress larger location through the simulation result.Lastly analysis the material characteristic parameter and fatigue characteristic parameter of the E+ grade steel of the coupler. Research the nominal stress method and local stress strain method and calculate the fatigue life of the coupler in these two methods. Compare the fatigue life calculation result with the line test and the lab experiment.