The First Carbon Fiber Composite Metro Vehicle in Berlin

Sci-tech Daily, Berlin, September 18 (Reporter Gu Gang) The world's first all-carbon fiber lightweight metro vehicle was unveiled at the Berlin International Rail Transit Technology Exhibition on September 18. This achievement, independently developed by Sino-German Rail Research and Development Center (CG Rail) and Sino-German Sino-German Rail Co., Ltd., is a major technological breakthrough in the next generation subway project of China Sino-German Rail Co., Ltd. and also fully demonstrates the strong strength of Sino-German cooperation in the field of lightweight.

Compared with the traditional metro, the new generation of metro vehicles is lighter and more energy-saving. According to Ding Shenshen, Deputy Engineer of Sifang Co., Ltd., the new generation of metro vehicle cab, car body, equipment cabin and bogie frame are all made of carbon fiber, which makes the vehicle achieve a large "slimming". Taking the car body as an example, the utilization rate of carbon fiber reinforced composites has reached 70%. Compared with the traditional aluminium car body, its weight is reduced by 30%. Its advent will lead metro vehicles into a new era of greener intelligence.

CG Rail has made an important contribution to the development and design of new vehicle materials. The center has mastered advanced and new lightweight manufacturing technology. Through further development of the pultrusion process, it has the ability of pultrusion forming of large-scale and multi-cavity carbon fiber profiles with wall thickness up to 25mm, and can efficiently complete the multi-axial arrangement of various fiber materials on one component. Dr. Ulbricht, general manager of CG Rail, said that in principle, unrestricted profiles could be produced, but due to factory site constraints, currently the parts formed by pultrusion are up to 77 meters long.

Innovative technology has also been fully reflected in the production of bogie frame. Carbon fiber reinforced composites are used in longitudinal and transverse beams. The high level of automation makes the whole preparation process repeatable and greatly improves the production efficiency. Compared with the traditional steel structure, the carbon fiber bogie can reduce the weight by more than 40%, and can bear the highest load, which can meet all the requirements of driving dynamics.

The driver's cab and equipment cabin, which use up to 90% of CFRP, also set a new benchmark for lightweight applications. Compared with the traditional metal materials, the cabin weight loss of 30%, cab "thin" is more than 30%. In addition, engineers have overcome many technical problems, such as, through integration optimization, the number and type of components are reduced while ensuring the completeness of each function. CG Rail has applied for 16 patents.

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