Case Study: Railway Vehicles Operating in the UK

On railway vehicles there is a barrier / partition between the driver and the passengers. This barrier prevents. passengers entering the cab to cause damage to equipment or to distract the driver. In the event of a fire in the passenger saloon it is also expected to protect the driver so that he can drive the train to a place of safety. The provision of a door between the cab and saloon is to enable the driver to escape into the saloon in the event of a collision.

Relevant Railtrack and British Standards are:

GM /TT 0179 Structural Requirements for Body Mounted Equipment

GMRT 2120 Requirements for the Control of Risks Arising from Fires on Railway Vehicles

BS 6853: 1999 Code of Practise for Fire Precautions in the Design and Construction of Passenger Carrying Trains

There are other performance requirements such as size, weight, thickness, appearance, maintenance which need to be considered.

Adtranz will give potential suppliers the performance requirements / space envelope etc. for the cab saloon partition and door, and will work with suppliers if necessary to develop a design.

Design Process

In the event of collaborative design we pool ideas, knowledge and experience to suggest suitable materials or combinations of materials which should meet the performance criteria. Each design is discussed by the team and the most promising are selected for small-scale furnace tests. It is rare for research organisations to be involved, unless they have intellectual property rights on a proposed material etc.

Test pieces for small scale testing would be made by the supplier and testing will be organised by either party. On successful completion of the small scale testing a design will be approved and a full scale fire barrier test to BS 476 Part 20/22 will be done

Development time is often weeks to months, particularly when well known materials are used to form a multi material and we have an order for railway vehicles under construction relying on a successful conclusion.

Material databases have not been used extensively at Adtranz to date – but this may change if quality of databases and access to them improves. Predictive tools have not been used either, possibly to the lack of involvement from research associations.

Adtranz do not manufacture multi materials so our supplier is concerned with balancing manufacturing with cost, production planning etc