Upgrade of Structural Test Laboratory at TA Savery, UK

Modernisation of Existing Testing Facility

In November 2020, the UK Government published a Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, and Point 5 covers Green Public Transport. Integral to this is the continued electrification of UK railway lines and the expansion of rail routes. With such ambitious plans to upgrade the UK network dating back to 1830, coupled with a growing rail industry worldwide, expanding traffic volumes, and advancing rail speeds, it was critical that the ISO 17025 accredited test laboratory already established at TA Savery in Coventry, UK was modernized to enable a more efficient testing capability, helping modern railway networks meet standards of operability, maintainability, and low life cycles costs.

Rail projects often require unique train designs due to variations in infrastructure, environment, regulations, and operating practices. Neither time nor cost permits prototype trains to conduct crash testing, so standards such as EN15227 look towards simulation, correlated against physical tests to verify performance. At the same time, crash energy management systems are becoming increasingly complex, incorporating anti-climbers, buffers, couplers, and crush elements. TA Savery group provides sophisticated simulations of collisions to evaluate crash energy management systems along the train and energy absorption devices correlated by over thirty years of testing, accredited since 2013 to ISO17025 and audited by UKAS (UK Accreditation Service).