JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #117 - November/December 2017 - 40

LAND TRANSPORTATION
body

Out-of-autoclave train body using
a new curable prepreg
he
re reg has e cellent ame retardant erformance that meets the
re uirements of the railwa sector t has been widel used in both interior and
e terior structural and non structural a lications such as train bodies beams and
batter bo es
field of railway applications. The train body is
produced in Jiangsu, China.

ue to the excellent mechanical performance of carbon fibre composites,
the application of composite materials
in the railway sector will be extended from
interior or small-sized parts to structural applications and large-sized parts, thus greatly
reducing the weight of the vehicles to achieve
high-speed operation, energy savings and
emission reductions.
Carbon fibre prepreg
Jiangsu Hengshen Co., Ltd.'s EV101 carbon
fibre prepreg not only offers excellent
flame-retardant performance compared with
commercially available materials for domestic
and foreign rail transit, but it also has excellent
mechanical properties meeting the design
requirements of the main load-bearing structures in the railway sector. Based on the existing
design and application experience for carbon
fibre composites in the aerospace sector, the
EV101 prepreg was successfully introduced
in a next-generation subway project. Jiangsu
Hengshen Co., Ltd. succeeded in manufacturing a train body using an out-of-autoclave
process (OOA), a major breakthrough in the

This innovation has received an Award on the occasion of the 13th year of the CCE-JEC Innovation
Awards Program, in September 2017

Financing and tarif
When India's renewable energy sector was
established, the government set up the Indian
Renewable Energy Development Agency
Ltd. (IREDA). As Mr. Debashish Majumdar
(Ex-CMD, IREDA) states, "No banker
finances an unknown animal. 15-20 years
ago no bank would touch a wind project". So
at the time, a specialized agency (IREDA)
was tasked to evaluate and mitigate the risk in
initial projects, and to make finances available.
At present, however, government support
to finance Land Transportation is limited,
mostly through taxation benefits by accelerated depreciation (AD) and generation-based
incentive (GBI), which has attracted many
private investors. As a result, India's wind
sector is 90% sponsored by the private sector.
The tariff for wind projects is decided by the
State Electricity Regulation Commission,
although the Central Electricity Regulation
Commission does provide tariff guidelines
each year, based on wind power density in five
zones.
A specific innovation
Jiangsu Hengshen Co., Ltd. and their partner
CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles Co.,
Ltd. conducted independent research and
development of a synthetic halogen-free
flame retardant that provides fire-retardant
properties to the resin matrix, specifically
complying with the DIN5510-2 standard S-4
level requirements.
Meeting the out-of-autoclave (OOA) process
requirements was one of the company's
objectives. General commercial carbon

jec composites magazine / N°117 November - December 2017

fibre prepregs require an autoclave press and
involve high manufacturing costs and high
equipment investment, so that their application in the railway sector is limited. Hengshen
co-operated with domestic and foreign
experts to take advantage of the application
experience available in the aerospace sector.
The technicians succeeded in producing the
world's largest carbon fibre composite part for
the railway sector (length 20 metres, width 3
metres, height 3 metres), with a plate porosity
under 3% and mechanical properties meeting
the design requirements.
The curing process is flexible and controllable
in the drying room conditions (70°C) to
produce large-scale parts with an out-of-autoclave process. It can also be used to mould
small parts with a curing cycle of 4 minutes at
140°C.
According to the class definition provided in
DIN5510-2:2009, the tested sample is classified as follows: Burning Class: S-4, Smoking
Class: SR-2, Dripping Class: ST-2, FED=0.11.
More and more widely used
The EV101 prepreg production process is
stable and has already been used for mass
production. The project validations showed
that the prepreg clearly offers the required
process performance (process operation and
moulding process).
Due to the current low weight and energy
saving requirements, carbon fibre composites
will be more and more widely used in the
rail transit sector. The EV101 prepreg will
promote the use of domestic carbon fibre
composites in railway applications.
More information:
.hscarbonfibre.com/cn

http://www.hscarbonfibre.com/cn

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #117 - November/December 2017