An improved reefer wall panel having better foam adhesion by including a plurality of hook and loop tape sections. The sections, as strips, may be applied horizontally or diagonally and may extend from the top to near the bottom of any such wall panel before foaming. They may be applied to the whole of panel, randomly throughout or to just the more vulnerable lower sections of a given panel.

An improved reefer wall panel having better foam adhesion includes purposefully spaced gaps in the looped sections to be foamed. Such spaced gaps may extend horizontally, vertically, diagonally or in combinations of directions. These gaps (random or patterned) may be applied to the whole of a reefer panel or to just the more vulnerable lower sections where traffic impact during loading/unloading is more common and/or where delamination is known to occur more frequently. A method of reefer panel manufacture with such spaced gaps is also disclosed.

It is described a rail vehicle, in particular a tram comprising a front portion and a bumper. Preferably, the bumper comprises at least a thermoplastic material comprising PPS, more preferably the bumper comprises more than 50%, even more preferably more than 80% by weight on the total weight of the thermoplastic materials present in the bumper in a thermoplastic PPS-based material. Preferably, the thermoplastic material comprises reinforcement fibres, more preferably glass fibres.

A device for connecting a cross member for receiving pivot pins on two lower longitudinal members of a car body for a rail vehicle. The cross member has a transversal part that connects the two longitudinal members to each other in the region of the connection, and a longitudinal part that extends to the closest car front. The lower longitudinal members extend over the complete length of the car body and consist of multi-chamber hollow profiles made of a fibre composite material. The number of chambers of the multi-chamber hollow profile of each longitudinal member is reduced in the region of the connection such that the wall material of at least one chamber was removed in such a way that the webs to the adjacent chambers are exposed. At these places, load-introducing elements engage, to which load-introducing elements the cross member is attached.

The invention relates to a head module for a rail vehicle, said head module being suitable to be detachably fixed to the front face of a subsequent railcar unit without additional underframe. The head module consists of an inner and an outer shell and includes three systems which convert, in the event of a crash, the collision energy into a deformation one after the other or simultaneously and substantially independently of another.

The invention relates to a method for connecting a connection piece to a U-shaped ring anchor for a head module for rail vehicles, the head module consisting predominantly of fiber-reinforced plastic material and having an outer shell and the ring anchor consisting of fiber-reinforced plastic material and being arranged in the roof region of the outer shell as a stiffening means. According to the method, connecting elements are fed through the dry or matrix-material-impregnated, unconsolidated fiber reinforcement structure of the ring anchor.

A car body has at least: two lateral walls, each of which is made of a lower and upper longitudinal member that are connected by multiple lateral wall segments and vertically arranged columns, a roof, a base, two end walls or one end wall, and a head module, wherein the lower longitudinal members of the two lateral walls are connected to the base by means of connection elements in the longitudinal direction of the car body, and the upper longitudinal members of the two lateral walls are connected to the roof by means of connection elements in the longitudinal direction of the car body. The lower and upper longitudinal members are designed as multichamber hollow profiled sections which are continuous over the entire length of the car body, the lower and upper longitudinal members are made of fiber-reinforced plastic, and the connection elements at least partly consist of metal.

A wall structure for forming a wall of a rail vehicle car body, the wall structure comprising a metal panel having an aperture formed therein; and a fibre-reinforced-plastic (FRP) strengthening system attached to the metal panel at a corner of the aperture. The FRP strengthening system comprises a stack of FRP laminae arranged such that, progressing through the stack starting from a base lamina, the area of each lamina in the stack is less than that of the previous lamina.

A railcar head structure includes: a roof bodyshell positioned above a driver's cab window; and an underframe. The underframe includes: a pair of side sills; and a center sill located between the side sills and extending in a car longitudinal direction. A collision post is erected on a tip end of the center sill. A pillar is provided at the driver's cab window and extends so as to divide the driver's cab window. The pillar includes one end joined to the collision post and the other end joined to the roof bodyshell and couples the roof bodyshell and the collision post to each other.

The invention relates to a method for connecting a connection piece to a U-shaped ring anchor for a head module for rail vehicles, the head module consisting predominantly of fiber-reinforced plastic material and having an outer shell and the ring anchor consisting of fiber-reinforced plastic material and being arranged in the roof region of the outer shell as a stiffening means. According to the method, connecting elements are fed through the dry or matrix-material-impregnated, unconsolidated fiber reinforcement structure of the ring anchor.