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A sample from one of the rail cars being produced for Honolulu’s $9.2 billion transit project failed roof and floor fire testing in Texas last month, but the manufacturer plans to conduct new tests in Italy in May to determine whether the first results were valid. Read more

A sample from one of the rail cars being produced for Honolulu’s $9.2 billion transit project failed roof and floor fire testing in Texas last month, but the manufacturer plans to conduct new tests in Italy in May to determine whether the first results were valid.

Bob Good, senior project officer for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, said Hitachi Rail Italy would need to add a new fire-­resistant material to the car design or perhaps install steel plates under the floors of the cars if they continue to fail fire tests.

The cost of those modifications — if they are needed — would be borne by Hitachi, he said.

The company is questioning last month’s test results because the heat was controlled manually by laboratory staff during the trial, and the operator increased the temperature much more quickly to higher levels than was called for. The new test will be run in an automated laboratory where the flame and temperature will be controlled by a computer.

Industry standards require the roof and floor of rail cars to withstand flames for 20 minutes, an interval that is supposed to give passengers an opportunity to evacuate in the event of an accident and fire.

Initial tests conducted Feb. 25-27 at Southwest Research Laboratories in San Antonio found that flames penetrated the floor of the test car after 14 minutes and 30 seconds of exposure and that the floor lost structural integrity at 19 minutes and 38 seconds, Good said.

However, he said, four minutes into the trial, the furnace operator turned up the heat to nearly double what it was supposed to have been. The abrupt increase in heat may have caused a fire-resistant coating below the car floor to flake off, Good said.

“That’s right now what we think created the major problem,” he said.

Similar testing of the vehicle roof found flames entered the car at 16 minutes and 30 seconds, which was again rated as a failure. In that instance, too, the furnace operator turned up the heat too high too early in the test, which would cause the trial to be considered a “nonvalid test,” he said.

The retesting will be done at L.A.P.I. laboratory in Italy, with HART staff on hand to witness the testing. Hitachi cut up a car shell into four samples to provide material for the testing, Good said.

“We want to make sure the tests are done properly, and if we have a problem, what is the size of the problem and how to address it,” said Krishniah Murthy, senior adviser to the Honolulu rail project.

HART staff believes if the initial heat and flame testing had been run properly, “it would not have failed, but you can’t be sure of that. We’ve got a Plan B that we’re working on,” he said.

That plan involves stripping out the coating under the cars and replacing it with a new type of fire-protection coating. There is still time to complete the work, if necessary, before the scheduled interim opening of the first half of the rail line late next year, Murthy said.

Ansaldo Honolulu JV is responsible for manufacturing 80 Honolulu rail cars and developing and installing the driverless rail operating system under a $574 million contract with the city. Ansaldo was acquired by Hitachi after the Honolulu contract was awarded, and also has an $830 million contract to operate and maintain the entire 20-mile Honolulu rail line for 14 years.

When asked to comment on the fire issue, Ansaldo replied in a written statement that “Hitachi is confident that its trains meet the standards. Tests will be repeated shortly.”

Ansaldo has delivered 24 cars so far, and Good remarked that “the test was conducted very late in the overall design and build process for the vehicles.”

If the cars now need to be disassembled so that a new fire-resistant coating can be applied, “it’s all on their cost, because this should have been done prior to the assembly on any trains.”

The floor and roof of the Honolulu rail cars are similar in design to another car manufactured by Ansaldo that passed a more stringent fire test, “so they didn’t feel that it was extremely critical to do that early in the program,” he said.