2．Evaluation method for crashworthiness in the event of level crossing accident by driver’s injury indeices

It has been a subject that there is no collision as a standard and human's injury cannot be evaluated quantitatively when evaluating crashworthiness of rail vehicles. Therefore, recent serious level crossing accidents in Japan were surveyed and analyzed statistically in therms of the collision speed and the collision obstacle considered important especially, and a typical collision condition (collision at 54 km/h with a trailer carrying a 22-ton load etc.) was set up by means of numerically averaging these data (Fig.1).

A method which can evaluate the deformation of carbody and the kinematic motion of driver simultaneously in case of a collision was developed by using FE model of a lead car (including internal frameworks and a driver's desk) in which a dummy model of a driver was placed (Fig.2). This approach makes it possible to evaluate crashworthiness of a lead car by driver's injury indexes. The reproduction analysis of a past serious level crossing accident was carried out in order to verify the analysis accuracy of this method. The deformation of carbody and the driver's injury situation showed good agreement with the damage of accident.

FE analysis were performed changing the strength and rigidity of the carbody structure as well as driver's desk structure under the suporsed typical collision conditions (Fig.3). The results showed that several countermeasures were effective to improve crashworthiness of the driver's cab; firstly absorbing the shock of the head and knees with guiding and holding the human body, secondly, preventing the legs being caught in. I In the future, passenger's safety will be examined by applying this method.