Possibilities of reducing the number of welds on rail vehicle doors

The paper developed methods that can be employed to reduce the number of welds on a specific rail-vehicle frame door welded from the EN AW 6060 aluminum alloy profiles thermally processed into the T66 state. The profiles were welded by the GTAW method using an S Al 5087 (AlMg4,5MnZr) wire as the filler material. Tensile tests were performed on the supplied samples after welding to check the mechanical properties required. The resulting tensile test data were subsequently used as boundary values for a new design of the door frame having fewer welds. A FEM simulation was carried out using the Virtual Performance Solution software with PAM-Crash extension. The study's biggest achievement was reducing two welds on a real frame door without changing door frame stability. In view of saving welding and producing time and finance by reducing the number of loaded welds. In conclusion, this designed variant is evaluated and tested.