Experimental Research on Properties of Existent Rubber Draft Gear for Meter-Gage Railway Freight Car

To find out the causes for the poor behaviors of the existing rubber draft gears and develop new rubber draft gears, the properties of the existing rubber draft gears of meter-gage railway freight cars were investigated experimentally. The experimental results reveal thathigh compressionmodulus and unreasonable structure design are two essential reasons for the poor behaviors of the rubber draft gears. As a result, the draft gears are high in impacting force, capacity and mass, low in allowance travel and energy absorption ratio, and short in service life. In addition, the cost of the draft gears is high in manufacturing and maintaining. Therefore, the existing draft gears are not suggested for meter-gage railway freight cars.