<![CDATA[Energy absorbers in railway vehicle crash zones should provide sufficient energy-absorption capacity while limiting the forces transmitted to the supporting structure. This study evaluates an array of thin-walled aluminium square tubes as an energy-absorbing module for a light urban rail vehicle at the component level. Seven configurations based on commercially available extrusions were evaluated analytically, followed by explicit dynamic finite-element analysis of the selected configuration. The design case used an equivalent mass of 9,000 kg and an initial velocity of 7.0 m/s, corresponding to an initial kinetic energy of 220.5 kJ. The screening process resulted in a configuration consisting of six 6063-T6 aluminium tubes with dimensions of 76.2 × 76.2 × 1.95 mm and a length of 964 mm. The single-tube simulation exhibited progressive folding with a peak crushing force of 68 kN and a mean crushing force of 35 kN, with the latter differing by 2.0% from the analytical prediction. For the six-tube configuration, the peak crushing force and mean crushing force were 402 kN and 208 kN, respectively, with a crush-force efficiency of 0.52. The module absorbed 150 kJ, corresponding to approximately 68% of the initial kinetic energy, and achieved a specific energy absorption of 16.5 kJ/kg. The results indicate that the proposed configuration has potential as an energy-absorbing component for urban rail vehicles. However, experimental validation, deformable supporting-structure modelling, and evaluation under non-axial impact conditions are required before its performance can be assessed at the full-vehicle level.]]>
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