The weight reduction of carbody structures is of great concern in developing high speed tilting train for the normal operation of tilting system. The use of composite materials for the carbody structures has many advantages due to their excellent material properties such as high specific strength and stiffness.
In this paper, finite element analysis was conducted to analysis and design the composite structure of Tilting Train eXpress(TTX). According to JIS E 7105, various load tests were performed using finite element analysis and the structural safety of the composite carbody structure was inspected to determine the thickness of the composite sandwich structure. In addition, structural analysis was conducted to suggest a design of the joint part of composite carbody and metal underframe.