초록
In long freight trains, there is a brake time delay in the neighboring freight cars that causes damage and fractures of couplers, especially the knuckle of them. If there is a problem for couplers in the cars, this could cause a derailment and lead to damage of human life and property damage. In this study, maximum forces on the couplers are studied when a long freight car brakes, with brake delay time and coupler gap. We have made a dynamic model of 50 freight cars and couplers, applying contact between couplers and a characteristic curve for expressing force and displacement of buffers with SIMPACK, a multi-body dynamics program. We use EN 14531-2 from the British Standards Institution, a standard of freight car brakes for the verification of the dynamic model. We also use a simplified method to analyze the dynamic model of 50 freight cars. With changing coupler gap and brake delay time, we do comparative analysis with AAR M-201 from the Association of American Railroads, a standard of AAR couplers. From this result, we find that the standard on fatigue limit is satisfied, such that the brake delay time is within 0.06 second if the coupler gap of the AAR coupler is within 20 millimeters.