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Chinese scientists want to add wings to bullet trains to make them even faster

  • Study finds that five pairs of wings on each carriage would generate lift, reducing the weight and taking the top speed to 450km/h (280mph)
  • Research is part of CR450, a project launched by Beijing that aims to develop a new generation of high-speed trains

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China’s existing bullet trains can run at 350km/h. Photo: Bloomberg
Stephen Chen
China wants even faster bullet trains, and a team of scientists in the southwest of the country have suggested a way to do it: add wings.

Their study found that adding five pairs of small wings on each train carriage would generate additional lift and reduce the weight of the train by nearly a third, taking the top speed to 450km/h (280mph).

The research is part of a project launched by Beijing earlier this year named CR450, which aims to develop a new generation of high-speed trains that can travel at that speed.

China’s high-speed rail network is currently the fastest in the world – its existing bullet trains can run at 350km/h (217mph). The CR450 project aims to have trains that run nearly 30 per cent faster, meaning it would take only about three hours to travel from Beijing to Shanghai, or just five hours from Beijing to Guangzhou.

But “as the operating speed increases, the wear on the wheels will increase and inevitably shorten the repair cycle and service life of the wheels”, according to a paper by the team from the Chengdu Fluid Dynamics Innovation Centre, led by research engineer Zhang Jun.

“The high-speed train with lift wings is a breakthrough in the traditional concept of high-speed train aerodynamic design, to reduce overall energy consumption and operating costs,” they said in the paper published in peer-reviewed Chinese journal Acta Aerodynamica Sinica on Thursday.

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