Resilient Wayside Structures to Reduce Severity of Passenger Equipment Collisions

Additional passenger fatalities/injuries can occur during derailments involving interaction with wayside structures. Analogously, automobile fatalities often result from interaction of vehicles with roadside structures; personnel hazard reduction is a key design criterion for roadside structures. A similar approach for railroad wayside structures can be followed by incorporating damage mitigating features into new designs and retrofits of existing wayside structures. During Phase II, the concept for a novel catenary pole breakaway connection design was devised. Damage mitigation feasibility of the novel design concept was demonstrated through static/dynamic physical testing and component-level (catenary pole) and system-level (OLE support structure) numerical modeling using high-fidelity finite element techniques. A robust market delivery roadmap and commercialization strategy were also developed. The primary Phase IIB technical objective will be to arrive at a fully developed and validated breakaway connection design for the intended overload event, as well as for accidental operational loading conditions involving dynamic phenomena. This will be achieved through an experimental test program involving static friction tests, quasi-static lateral load tests, dynamic impact tests, and complemented with additional component- and system-level numerical modeling. During Phase IIB, our existing market delivery roadmap will also be executed to ensure market readiness upon completion of this project.