Design of Railway Bogies in Compliance With New EN 13749 European Standard Giampaolo Mancini, Alessandro Cera
Design of Railway Bogies in Compliance With New EN 13749 European Standard Giampaolo Mancini, Alessandro Cera
Design of Railway Bogies in Compliance With New EN 13749 European Standard Giampaolo Mancini, Alessandro Cera
1 1
Giampaolo Mancini , Alessandro Cera
1
FS Trenitalia, DISQS, Ingegneria di Base e Ricerca, Firenze, Italia
Abstract
As a consequence of the standardization process developing i n Europe, on April 2005 the new
European standard EN 13749 was issued by the European standardization body CEN. The aim of the
norm is to define the complete design pr ocess of new railway bogies . It includes design procedure s,
assessment methods, verificat ion and manufacturing quality requirements. In the paper all the main
aspects of the norm are described focusing the acceptance process of new railway bogies.
The EN13749 norm codifies static and fatigue load a ssumptions, as well as calculations and test
methods to verify the static and fatigue resistance of the bogie frames. An item not deepened in the
norm is the methodology to eva luate the fatigue strength by means of calcul ations. In the paper
fatigue analysis is investigate d comparing two different approaches (endurance limit and Goodman
diagram) and different calculation methodologies .
Finally, the procedure to validate the design process is described comparing the results of fatigue
calculations and fatigue tests for a Hembot bogie.
1. Introduction
So f ar, the design process for a new railway bogie frame has been carried out according to the UIC
leaflets for on-bench tests (U IC 515-4 for trailer bogies, UIC 615 -4 for motor bogies, UIC 510 -3 for
freight application bogie). Moreover the unavailability of validated calculation instruments did not
enable to investigate in detail the structural behaviour of the frame. The manufacturer experiences
and the conformity to the stati c and fatigue test to UIC Leaflets were considered enough to approve
bogie frame str uctural resistance. With the improving of new numerical calculation codes ( Finite
Element Method) t he standardization of all phases of the design process of the bogie frame has been
possible.
The norm EN 13749 standardizes and develops the requirements already present in the UIC leaflets
for test verifications and define s all the technical requirements for the acceptance process in order to
achieve a complete satisfactory design of the bogie, including axle boxes housings and the bolsters
on the frame.
In this standard, a path to verify the whole project is defined. Starting up from a check on its geometric
features (delivery of the preliminary drawings), every step of the verification procedure leads to the
achievement of the technical approval. So, the aim of this new standard is to assess the validity of the
design choices done by the manufacturer for a new bogie frame.
4. Calculations
4.1 General methodology
The aim of the cal culation process is to verify that no permanent deformations or fatigue failures occur
in the specified life of the new bogie frame .
As regards the calculation process, the structural analysis is divided in two phases:
− structural analysis of the bogie frame by FEM calculations ;
− structural analysis of the attachments components -bogie frame by FEM calculations .
On each phase two different structural verification are required:
− static calculation with the exceptional load cases representing extreme loads that might occur
only rarely during the life of the bogie;
− fatigue calculation with normal service load cases, representing those loads that can occur during
normal operations.
For the two verifications above the calculation process for the acceptance procedure requires the
following activities:
− determination of the forces that occur in the interfaces of the structure
− combination of these forces in load cases representing operation conditions
− analysis of the stress values caused by the application of every load cases
− assessment of the calculated stress values comparing them to the acceptable stress limits.
7. On-track tests
At the end of the acceptance programme the on-track tests have the aim to measure the real stress
values generated in operations and to verify that they are reasonably next to those calculated and
measured on the test rig.
Generally on-track tests are required and carried out for bogi es with a large rate of innovati ve
solutions. The norm permits to carry out a reduced test program or to use a simplified procedure in
case of an existing bogie design used for a different application.
Fatigue calculations have been performed with t he method of cumulative damage and the sequence
of loads specified in the standard for the fatigue test program has been used as load spectrum.
The methodology to analyse the stress values in order to evaluate the fatigue cycle characteristics
and the safety factors is described below:
a. all the load cycles included in the load spectrum are identified;
b. for each load cycle the two extreme load cases are identified, that is the load case related the
maximum load condition of the cycle and the load case related the minimum load condition of the
cycle;
c. for each load case a FEM calculation is carried out;
d. for each load case o n every element of the FEM model located on welded joints, a local
coordinate system is consider ed: a x-axis in longitudinal direction (locally aligned whit the axis of
the welding) and a y-axis for the transversal direction (normal to the axis of the welding) ;
e. an analysis of FEM calculations of the two extreme load cases is carried out to identify the tensile
and shear stress values related to the above coordinate system in every element of the structure ;
f. the parameters of three fatigue cycles are evaluate d (maximum and minimum stress value,
amplitude and mean value) to identify:
§ a longitudinal stress cycle Δ σxx (tensile-compressive stress cycle parallel to the welding );
§ a transversal stress cycle Δ σyy (tensile-compressive stress cycle normal to the welding) ;
§ a shear stress cycle Δτxy (tangential stress cycle in the longitudinal section of the welding ).
g. considering the number of applications hypothesized for each load cycles, for every element of
the welded joints the cumulative damage and relative safety factor is evaluated using an
approach based on Miner’s rule (and defined on the Italian standard CNR UNI 10011 ).
Load case 1 (see fig. 2) Load case 3 (see fig. 2) Load case 5 (see fig. 2)
Strain
Ref. Element Differ. Differ. Differ.
gage Meas. Calc. Meas. Calc. Meas. Calc.
nr. nr. (%) (%) (%)
nr.
1 2 118937 294 244 17 296 283 4.3 413 341 17.4
2 49 98607 270 241 9.6 154 147 4.5 260 233 10.3
3 3 118872 307 274 10.7 149 177 18.7 268 246 8.2
4 5 98558 191 207 -8.3 204 214 -4.9 282 295 -4.6
5 52 119547 172 169 1.7 -8 -15 - 60 57 5
6 11 97469 146 140 4.1 192 205 -6.7 253 265 -4.7
10. Conclusion
The publication of the standard EN 13749 codifies in Europe the design process of the bogie frame
and identifies clearly responsibilit ies of the customer and the supplier of the bogie design. For the
acceptance procedure of a bogie design the norm defines a path of verification activities that
guarantee that a new bogie design is compliant to all quality and resistance requirements.
The acceptance process allows also to produce a complete technical dossier concerning the
verification of bogie design.
Finally it is important to underline that some important aspect still remain open points and are not yet
defined in the norm. The items which will require research work in the next years are mainly two: the
first one is the analysis and calculation methodology to evaluate the multi-axial fatigue in the bogie
frames and the second one the need to standardise d esign loads and parameters for tilting train
bogies related to the maximum non compensated acceleration of operations.
References
[1] A.Cera, G.Mancini. "L’evoluzione della normativa di progettazione dei carrelli ferroviari: dalle
fiches UIC alla norma europea EN 13749", CIFI Congress "Evoluzione del materiale rotabile .
Tecniche di progettazione ed attività di testing", Pistoia (2005).
[2] A.Cera, G.Man cini, R.Roberti. "The new Hembot bogie - Main features and first test results",
International Rail Forum "The Rail Meeting Point", Barcelona (2003).
[3] European Committee for Standardization, "EN 13749. Railway applications - Methods of
specifying structural requirements of bogie frames” (2005).
[4] G.Mancini, A.Cera, R.Roberti, A.Gallone, F.Giorgetti, A.Tarantino. "The new Hembot motor bogie
Main features and results of the dynamic behaviour by line tests", WCRR’03, Edinburgh (2003).