JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #117 - November/December 2017 - 51

Composites hit a snag in railway

Bombardier Transportation's Regio 2N Hauts-de-France platform

More information

Total ..........................242.3 MT

share the same concern: getting materials that
guarantee them a lifespan of at least 40 years
without loss of mechanical and fire-resistance
properties. Furthermore, from Bombardier
Transport's point of view, composite materials
have the disadvantage of a much lower recyclability rate than aluminium. "Theoretically,
a glass-fibre thermoset is only 67% recyclable,
with an upgrade rate of 33%, while we are
supposed to build trains that are 95% recyclable
and 98% upgradable - in other words, with no
more than 2% waste," observed Joao Palma,
the R&D manager at Bombardier Transport's
site at Crespin, in northern France. Since
2013-2014, new European standards on fire
safety that become mandatory in 2018 have
been penalizing polyester. Builders are also
obliged to apply an anti-graffiti varnish and
paint over the polyester, further complicating

A 15 to 30 percent weight reduction
For now, the use of composites containing
carbon fibre is excluded, due to the high
cost and lower recyclability rate compared
to metal. However, the European railway
industry is not turning its back to composites,
since their weight-lowering advantages also
improve the energy efficiency of railway
transportation. That is where the European
Refresco programme comes in: from 2013
and 2016, it explored solutions to radically
increase the share of composites in the trains
of the future, while complying with standards
for crashworthiness, fire safety and recyclability. One objective has been to reduce the
weight of the trains by 15-30%. Refresco has
also led to two lighthouse projects: Roll2Rail,
a feasibility study for a train with a structure
made of carbon fibre, among others, including
the use of fibre-reinforced plastics (FRP)
with or without honeycomb core for various
structural parts (2015-2017); and Shift2Rail,
an ongoing study on the industrialization of

such a concept (2017-2020), taking example
from the aviation industry.
Cost requirements
For the moment, the principal conclusions
have received a mixed reception. According
to a report published this summer by Eduardo
de la Guerra, a Roll2Rail work-package
leader from Spanish builder Talgo's Structures
Department, "the use of hybrid materials that
combine high-strength alloys, aluminium sandwich and FRP or carbon/FRP type composites
would make it possible to reduce weight by at
least 20%..... However, there is still a need to
develop mountings and resins that are adapted
to the railway industry." Especially, the report
concludes that "few composites fully meet the
EN 45545 fire, smoke and toxicity standards."
And for fatigue resistance and crashworthiness
(EN 12663 et EN 15227), "only metals are currently taken into account." This situation could
change, and that is the mission of Shift2Rail,
which includes a component on building
technological demonstrators for a complete
carriage, to prove that composites can be used
more intensively in train structures and still
meet both standards and cost requirements.
The validation tests on this demonstrator will
take place in 2020-2021, and the final report is
expected for mid-2022.

N°117 November - December 2017

More information: www.bombardier.com
www.alstom.com

/ jec composites magazine

Feature Land Transportation

Breakdown of the materials used on
Alstom's Spacium platform (Transilien) (in metric tons, based on an
8-carriage trainset)
Metals ......................209.1 MT
Polymers.....................13.1 MT
Elastomers..................6.5 MT
Glass.............................5.4 MT
Fluids ...........................1.8 MT
Modified natural organic materials
(wood, leather, etc.).....1.7 MT
Other ............................4.6 MT

compliance with the standards. Bombardier
worked with one of its suppliers, Stratiform,
on a possibility for a flax-fibre-reinforced
front shell, but the project, called Sinfoni, got
no further than the demonstrator stage. "We
obtained a 20% weight saving over glass fibre,
but also an additional cost of 16%," explained
Aurélie Söderström.

51
http://www.bombardier.com http://www.alstom.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #117 - November/December 2017
