Case Study: Voith Turbo Scharfenberg achieves streamlined railcar coupler design and safety compliance with ANSYS

ANSYS enables an industry leader to design railcar couplers, streamlining design while meeting safety and regulatory requirements

Voith Turbo, maker of the widely used Scharfenberg railcar coupler, faced the challenge of designing energy-absorbing components that meet strict safety and regulatory standards while withstanding large deformations and nonlinear force-path behavior of hyperelastic rubber elements during collisions. To validate and optimize coupler performance across multiple collision scenarios, Voith Turbo worked with ANSYS using ANSYS Mechanical and ANSYS Workbench for advanced simulation.

ANSYS implemented standard contact formulations, hyperelastic material models calibrated to test force-path curves, and multi-scenario nonlinear analyses to capture complex contact and deformation behavior. Using ANSYS Mechanical streamlined Voith Turbo’s development process, avoided convergence problems, and enabled faster, more reliable design iterations—helping Voith Turbo maintain market leadership, reduce time to market, and decrease warranty costs while meeting safety requirements.

Voith Turbo

Eckart Jäde

Team Leader Technical Calculation