Shock and vibration environments for large shipping containers on rail cars and trucks

The purpose of this study was to provide definitions of shock and vibration environment to which fissile material shipping containers may be exposed during normal shipment by truck and rail cars. The definitions of vibration, shock superimposed on vibration and rail coupling shock result from existing data. The dependence of shock environment, from rail coupling operations, on parameters like cargo weight and shock attenuation couplers was also studied using spring-mass models. These studies show that for rail cars equipped with standard draft gear, the cargo response decreases with increased cargo weight until the springs bottom out. For rail cars equipped with shock attenuation couplers, cargo weight has little effect on cargo response. The study also shows the importance of matching couplers and tiedown stiffnesses to decrease the cargo response. Vibration and shock data samples have been obtained during truck shipment of heavy cargo and the data will be presented in subsequent reports. Similar data need to be obtained for rail shipment of heavy cargo and during rail coupling operations with heavy cargo.