STRUCTURE RATIONALIZATION OF TANK CARS SUPPORT DEVICES FOR FLUIDS

Abstract

Purpose. Improvement of fluid tank cars structure due to development of new tank bracket support structures and their materials consumption decrease. Methodology. The investigations to search the optimal design of the support structure were conducted in order to solve such problem. At the first stage patent and bibliographic analysis of technical solutions was done, the advantages and disadvantages were revealed and new design options were proposed, the most efficient design was determined. The next step is objective function making for determining its optimal parameters, imposition of restrictions, acquisition of objective function approximation and restrictions in the form of polynomials. At the third stage numerical implementation of function optimization was proposed, optimal design parameters were determined with graphical method. Results methods have coincided. Findings. The most efficient design of support structure was determined; its optimum geometrical dimensions were described. Originality. The author provides the mathematical formulation of optimal design of tank car supports using the minimum materials consumption criteria. The graphic and numerical methods were used during the investigations. Practical value. The author proposed the finite-element models of tank car with different design execution of bracket support structures, which allow estimating the VAT of structure.

Keywords

• tanks cars
• barrel
• bracket support structure
• vehicle capacity
• supporting element
• reduced stress
• objective function
• generic mathematical model