DETERMINING THE LOAD OF THE CONTAINER WHEN IT IS FIXED IN AN OPEN WAGON USING PNEUMATIC SHELLS

Abstract

Introduction. Ensuring the efficiency of railway transport at the current stage of development of the transport industry necessitates the improvement of combined systems. Container transport is the most relevant among them today. Containers are transported by rail on flat wagons. The shortage of flat wagons in operation necessitates the use of other types of wagons for container transport, such as open wagons. However, the use of open wagons for container transport requires a reliable scheme of their interaction that would ensure the immobility of containers during transportation. Purpose. Determining the load of a container when it is fixed in an open wagon using pneumatic shells. Results. To ensure the containers' longitudinal stability, pneumatic shells used, which are installed between the end wall of the open wagon and the cont ainer. Mathematical modelling was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of using pneumatic shells for fixed containers in an open wagon. It is established that in order to keep the container accelerations within 20 m/s2, the stiffness of the pneumatic shell should be at least 2500 kN/m. The strength of the container was calculated taking into account the load perception from the pneumatic shell. The calculation results showed that the maximum stresses occurred in the middle part of the side beam and amounted to 326.4 MPa. The maximum displacements in the end wall were recorded at its centre and were equal to 3.8 mm. The results of the calculation allow us to conclude that the strength of the container under the applied loads is not ensured. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the scheme for securing containers in an open wagon. Conclusions. The research will contribute to the development of recommendations for improving the efficiency of rail transport operations.