Department of Rail Vehicle Engineering

With a glorious history over 100 years, the Department of Rail Vehicle Engineering, whose predecessor is Machinery Department of Tangshan Jiaotong University, is the cradle of Chinese railway engineers. Numerous outstanding railway industry talents are trained here, including Professor Zhiyun Shen, the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering and Professor Wanming Zhai, the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences. The graduates work all over the railway engineering fields, they have made significant contributions to Chinese urban rail transit vehicle equipment, railway heavy-haul transportation equipment, passenger transport speed increase and high-speed EMU “introduction, digestion, and re-innovation”, and play an irreplaceable role in the development of Chinese railway industry.

The Department of Rail Vehicle Engineering belongs to the discipline of Vehicle Engineering, which is the second level discipline under the first level discipline of Mechanical Engineering. Up to now, there are three undergraduate majors (locomotive, railway vehicle, urban rail transit vehicle), two master majors (vehicle engineering, urban rail transit technology and equipment) and three doctor majors (vehicle engineering, urban rail transit technology and equipment, vehicle application engineering). In 1993, vehicle engineering was awarded a national key discipline and a key discipline by the Ministry of Railways. In 1999, it was approved as a post-doctoral mobile station. In 2006 and 2008, it won the title of "Brand Specialty" of Sichuan Province and national level, respectively. In 2015 and 2018, it passed the professional certification. In 2019, it was approved as "National First-Class Professional" workstation.

The Department of Rail Vehicle Engineering has a research team of 26 full-time employees, including 6 professors, 5 associate professors, 11 lecturers, 2 postdocs and 2 workers. Among them, there are 1 Changjiang Scholar, 1 Double-hired Academician, 1 Outstanding Contribution Expert of Sichuan Province and 1 Winner of National Top 100 Excellent Doctor's Degree. The department has carried out theoretical and experimental research on high-speed trains, urban rail and subway vehicles, electric locomotives, railway freight cars, urban trams, railway engineering vehicles, mountain toothed rail trains, rubber-wheeled guide-rail cars and other new types of rail vehicles. The team has presided over and participated in a series of major national projects, including 973 projects, 863 projects, National Science and Technology Support projects, International Science and Technology Cooperation projects, National Natural Science Foundation project and Joint Fund of High-speed Railway project. The team has long-term cooperation with Chinese Railway Corporation and CRRC Corporation, it undertakes the research on the key technologies of the braking system of maglev train, power concentration and Fuxing EMU, the fatigue reliability and damage mechanism of key structures such as wheelset under complex environment, the dynamic performance of high-speed train, suspended monorail, straddle monorail and heavy load train, the design of railway vehicles and related test bench, the service performance health monitoring of high-speed EMU, the reduction of vibration and noise etc. The team has compiled a series of professional textbooks independently, such as Vehicle Engineering, Introduction of High-speed EMU, Structural Reliability and Dynamics of EMU, High-speed Train Network and Control Technology, Urban Rail Transit Vehicle Engineering, Structural Strength of Railway Rolling Stock, Frame and Bogie of High-speed EMU. The team has won the National Science and Technology Progress Award (the second prize once), Provincial and Ministerial Science and Technology Progress Award (the first prizes twice, the second prizes twice and the third prizes thrice), Zhan Tianyou Railway Science and Technology Awards (twice), Scientific and Technological Achievements of Ministry of Railways Awards (the second prizes once), CRRC Scientific and Technological Achievements Awards (the third prizes once).

The main research fields are:

Locomotive & vehicle design and theory

Structural strength and reliability

Locomotive & vehicle CAD/CAE

Dynamics of locomotive & vehicle system

Train aerodynamics

Traction transmission and control

Vehicle electrical and in-vehicle environmental control

Intelligent maintenance and fault diagnosis

Service performance health management, vibration and noise reduction