Abstract
Within the European platform Europe's Rail, whose objective is to promote research and development activities in the railway sector, can be found the PIVOT-2 project (Grant Agreement no. 881807), which addresses the implementation on track of light and environmentally friendly vehicles, reducing energy consumption and therefore the CO2 emissions derived from the transport sector.
To meet these objectives, the project seeks to achieve the weight reduction of primary structures. This way, the use of composites materials appears as an interesting alternative in a sector where their use has been very limited to non-structural components, largely due to the need to comply with fire protection regulations (EN 45545) [1]. Thanks to the development of new resins, the possibilities of these materials are increasing, being necessary to evaluate their performance in new applications.
Similarly, the characteristics of the railway industry mean that the manufacturing processes of composite materials widely used in other sectors, such as the aerospace, must be adapted. Likewise, and due to the requirements of the final product, it will be necessary to adapt the materials to these new applications, developing materials with higher grammage or ply thickness than those currently used.
The project evaluates the automatic laying of different materials developed for the railway sector. The behaviour of flat laminates is analysed, as well as the lamination of the material on core structures. Finally, studies are validated with the manufacturing of a train carbody section, using automatic lamination processes (ATL).
Within the European platform Europe's Rail, whose objective is to promote research and development activities in the railway sector, can be found the PIVOT-2 project (Grant Agreement no. 881807), which addresses [...]
Manufacture of a train carbody section using automatic lamination processes 