Russian engineers have developed and patented a new tank car for transporting petroleum products with an increased boiler volume and a carrying capacity of up to 75 tons. The authors of the utility model are OOO "Vsesoyuzny Nauchno-Issledovatelsky Tsentr Transportnykh Tekhnologiy" (OOO "VNITsTT").
The main feature of the new design is a redesigned boiler with a variable shell diameter and torispherical heads. This solution allowed maximum use of the 1-T gauge without increasing the overall length of the car along the automatic coupler axes, which, as before, is 12,020 mm.
Due to the new geometry, the outer length of the boiler has been increased to at least 11,581 mm, and in the preferred embodiment, it reaches 11,640–11,700 mm. At the same time, the useful volume increased to 92 cubic meters compared to 89.4 cubic meters for the closest analogues.
At the same time, the developers managed to increase the estimated carrying capacity to 75 tons with an allowable axle load of 25 tons-force. The patent notes that existing designs did not allow full use of the allowable load due to insufficient boiler volume.
Another feature of the design was the reduction of its own weight. Thanks to the use of stronger materials, the wall thickness of the boiler was reduced to 8 mm, which allowed its weight to be reduced to approximately 9.62–9.66 tons compared to 10.53 tons for one of the serial analogues. At the same time, the car frame was also lightened – its weight was reduced from approximately 3.22 to 2.83 tons.
The developers also maintained the standard car length and the arrangement of the main components, thanks to which the new tank car is compatible with the existing infrastructure of loading and unloading terminals and does not require changes in the technology of loading and unloading petroleum products.