Since 2003, the Stadler Rail Group (Bussnang, Switzerland) has been using Abaqus for the structural evaluation of car body shells and bogie frames. Recently, in order to prove special collision scenarios for the survival zone of the passengers and the engineer in their new railway vehicles, Stadler turned to Abaqus to analyze crashworthiness behavior.

Watch Dr. Alois Starlinger, head of structural analysis, testing, and certification at Stadler Rail, explain how numerical analyses showed that a new crashworthy train design guarantees sufficient and controlled energy absorption and maintains the survival space required. Better yet, dynamic testing of the crash absorber modules has validated the results of the nonlinear analyses.

Want to know more about Dr. Starlinger's analyses and results, read his 2011 SCC technical paper. Additional background on Stadler Rail can also be found in his 2007 SCC technical paper, and the spring 2008 edition of SIMULIA’s magazine, formally called INSIGHTS.