ADHESIVELY BONDED LAP-JOINTS FOR THE COMPOSITE-STEEL SHELL STRUCTURE OF HIGH-SPEED VEHICLES

Recently the design and manufacture elf lightweight train structures h ave become important in order to increase speed. Composite train struc tures have many advantages over conventional steel or aluminum train s tructures because of their high specific strength, modulus and high da mping capacity, which is beneficial for NVH (noise, vibration and hars hness). From the structures of high-speed trains, the upper car-body i s a good candidate for composite structures which increase the stabili ty of trains due to the low gravity center of vehicles. If the side bo dy of the train is made of steel plates, then joining of composite str uctures to the steel structures is required. In this work, the adhesiv e joining method between the composite upper car-body structure and th e steel side plates was investigated. A 1/10-size model of a real trai n subjected to internal pressure was developed and tested statically a nd dynamically. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.