Mat4Rail Newsletter 01  |  June 2018

The project behind the trains of the future
What Mat4Rail is all about and who is involved
The global railway manufacturing industry is rapidly changing with new and attractive Asian products entering the European market. For Europe’s rail industry to stay globally competitive, a new approach is needed when it comes to innovation by improving performance, reliability and energy efficiency as well as passenger comfort of rolling stock. Mat4Rail is one of the 44 ongoing funded projects under the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking (S2R). Its collaborative approach between researchers, engineers and designers as well as synergising with other S2R projects is a much needed step change when it comes to designing the trains of the future. Key to success are innovative materials and modular design for rolling stock to which Mat4Rail is devoted to. The two year project is taking first steps towards reducing train weight by replacing metal parts with Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRPs) with approved fire- and mechanical performance and presents new innovations for increasing capacity and passenger comfort via built-in modularity of train interior design. Read More

Mat4Rail at the Baltic Sea
Preliminary results of Mat4Rail resin development were presented in the Epoxy and Resins Conference held on a cruise boat between Stockholm and Helsinki the 14-17th May, 2018
CIDETEC presented an oral communication involving the preliminary results obtained from the development of new epoxy resin formulations with improved flame retardancy. This work was supported also by AIMPLAS, HUNTSMAN and RISE. Read More

The Mat4Rail's interior design team meets complementary PIVOT project in Paris
Both Shift 2 Rail JU design teams agreed on specifications
Parallel to the Mat4Railproject runs a complementary Shift2Rail JU project, called PIVOT, coordinated by Bombardier. Mat4Rail and PIVOT aim at achieving innovations which respond to the rail industry’s needs and requirements through frequent interaction and knowledge sharing between the two consortia.
The design teams of the two consortia met in Paris in March 2018. At the top-level meeting the agreements on design specifications for train interiors were set, focusing on the work streams of innovative plug&play systems, seats and driver´s desk. Read More

Mat4Rail on Tour
From the Atlantic to the Baltic Sea
Since the start of the Mat4Rail project on 1st October 2017 the project partners have been actively informing and promoting the Mat4Rail project at various events all over Europe. To date, the presentations predominantly focused on introducing the project, its goals and how the partners are planning on achieving these. Read More