A consortium including Bodycote Warringtonfire has been successful with a bid under the European Commission 7th Framework Programme 2008 (Transport theme). The TRANSFEU project (Transport Fire Safety Engineering in the European Union) has been approved and a 4-year programme will start in 2009.
The main objectives of TRANSFEU are to support European standardisation (especially to finalise EN 45545) and to develop a fire safe performance based design methodology (especially for rolling stock in tunnels). The research will develop a new testing tool using FTIR spectrometry for toxic gas fire effluents under dynamic conditions simulating railway applications. A classification scheme for railway products will then be proposed and its acceptability in trains evaluated under real scale fire scenario conditions. The fire safety engineering methodology may also be extended to marine applications for future IMO specifications.
The consortium includes all the leading European train builders and train operating companies (such as Alstom, Bombardier, Siemens, AnsaldoBreda, CNTK, Trenitalia, DB, SNCF and RATP) and is supported by UNIFE (The Association of the European Railway Industry), the Secretariat of CEN/TC256 'Railway applications' and ALMA Consulting Group.