GW COMPOS Supports CETROVO 1.0 Carbon Express, Carbon Fiber Achieves New Generation of High-End Equipment

On June 26th, the carbon fiber subway train "CETROVO 1.0 Carbon Express," developed by CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co., Ltd. in conjunction with Qingdao Metro Group for the Qingdao Metro Line 1, was officially released. This is the world's first carbon fiber subway train for commercial operation, which is 11% lighter than traditional vehicles, with significant advantages such as being lighter and more energy-efficient, leading the way for a new green upgrade of subway trains. GW COMPOS provided carbon fiber and fabric, prepreg materials, and other material support to help the train achieve light weighting.

Traditional subway vehicles mainly use steel, aluminum alloys, and other metal materials, facing weight reduction bottlenecks due to material characteristics. Carbon fiber, known as the "king of new materials," has the advantages of being lightweight, high-strength, fatigue-resistant, and corrosion-resistant. Its strength is more than 5 times that of steel, but its weight is less than 1/4 of steel, making it an excellent material for light weighting of rail vehicles.

CRRC Sifang Co., Ltd., in collaboration with Qingdao Metro Group and GW COMPOS, and other units, has overcome key technologies such as integrated design of large and complex main load-bearing structures, efficient and low-cost molding, and comprehensive intelligent detection and maintenance, solving the challenges of engineering applications. For the first time globally, carbon fiber composite materials have been applied to the main load-bearing structures of commercial subway vehicles.

The vehicle's body and bogie frames, which are the main load-bearing structures, are made of carbon fiber composite materials, achieving a new upgrade in vehicle performance. The vehicle has technical advantages such as being lighter and more energy-efficient, higher strength, stronger environmental adaptability, and lower whole-life cycle operation and maintenance costs. Compared with subway vehicles made of traditional metal materials, the body of this carbon fiber subway vehicle is 25% lighter, the bogie frames are 50% lighter, the whole vehicle is about 11% lighter, the operating energy consumption is reduced by 7%, and each train can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 130 tons per year, equivalent to afforestation of 101 acres.

Currently, the carbon fiber subway train has completed the factory type test. According to the plan, it will be put into passenger demonstration operation on Qingdao Metro Line 1 within the year.