Manufacturing of the Composite Chassis of the Superbus and Assembly Strategy

The Superbus was introduced as one of the option for the Zuiderzeelijn, a fast connection between Amsterdam and Groningen and resulted to be the best option; the others being three different types of high speed train and the magnetic levitation train. In order evaluate the feasibility of its implementation, the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Water Management has decided to fund the realization of a demonstrator.

The Superbus is sustainable, fast, lightweight, and appealing and transports passengers and goods from point to point and drives at high speed (250 km/h) on its dedicated and relatively cheap infrastructure. The Superbus is 15 meter long, 2.5 m wide, 1.6m high and weighs less than 9 ton when fully loaded. The vehicle has to be able to brake or avoid an obstacle (detected by the navigation and control system) within a distance of 240m. Alongside that, static and dynamic loading conditions have rendered the structural design targets very demanding. For that, a new design has been implemented, which a uses cross-beams type of structure resulting in octagonal doors. Also, lightweight materials and construction processes have been implemented.