Citation: Bulakh, M.; Klich, L.; Baranovska, O.; Baida, A.; Myamlin, S. Reducing Traction Energy Consumption with a Decrease in the Weight of an All-Metal Gondola Car. Energies 2023, 16, 6733. https:// doi.org/10.3390/en16186733 Academic Editor: Giovanni Lutzemberger Received: 10 August 2023 Revised: 3 September 2023 Accepted: 20 September 2023 Published: 21 September 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). energies Article Reducing Traction Energy Consumption with a Decrease in the Weight of an All-Metal Gondola Car Maryna Bulakh 1, *, Leszek Klich 1 , Oleksandra Baranovska 2 , Anastasiia Baida 3 and Sergiy Myamlin 4 1 Faculty of Mechanics and Technology, Rzeszow University of Technology, 37-450 Stalowa Wola, Poland 2 Faculty of Political Science and Journalism, University of Maria Curie-Sklodowska, 20-612 Lublin, Poland 3 Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, 20-950 Lublin, Poland 4 Department of Electrical Power Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electromechanics, Ukrainian State University of Railway Transport, 61050 Kharkiv, Ukraine * Correspondence: m.bulakh@prz.edu.pl Abstract: The paper presented studies on reducing traction energy consumption with a decrease in the weight of an all-metal gondola car. Based on the proposed mathematical criterion, a new form of a blind floor was obtained, which makes it possible to reduce the weight of an all-metal gondola car. The aim of the paper was to reduce traction energy consumption with a decrease in the weight of an all-metal gondola car. For an all-metal gondola car with a modified form of a blind floor, strength studies were performed based on the finite element method. The equivalent stresses of the blind floor of an all-metal gondola car were 140.6 MPa, and the equivalent strains were 7.08 × 10 -4 . The margin of safety of the blind floor of an all-metal gondola car was 1.57. The weight of an all-metal gondola car with a modified form of a blind floor was reduced by 5.1% compared to a typical all-metal gondola car. For an all-metal gondola car with a modified form of a blind floor, a comparison was made of the traction energy consumption with typical all-metal gondola cars. Traction energy consumption with empty all-metal gondola cars were reduced by 2.5–3.1%; with loaded all-metal gondola cars by 2.4–7.3%, depending on the travel time interval. Keywords: traction energy consumption; all-metal gondola car; rail transport; blind floor; weight; lightweighting 1. Introduction Rail transport is an important economic sector in the world. To ensure the uninter- rupted delivery of goods and people, the proper level of traffic safety and environmental safety [1,2] must be ensured. Traffic safety on railways affects the speed of delivery of goods and passengers. The traction energy consumption has an impact on the competitiveness of rail transport. Every day the need for freight and passenger transportation increases. At the same time, requirements have been made to reduce traction energy consumption. To reduce the traction energy consumption, various solutions have been proposed, for example [3–5]. Thus, in [3], on the basis of a simulation model of optimal train control, an assessment has been made of strategies for reducing traction energy consumption. However, this work has been related to metro systems. In works [4–7], to reduce the energy consumption of an electric locomotive, the traction power control method and dynamic programming was used. The presented methods have been limited by the conditions of use. In works [8,9], energy-saving approaches in operation were considered. These works have been limited to use in urban rail transport systems. In works [10–15], the optimization of thrust energy was performed. However, these works have been limited to use in metro lines. In the works of [16–22], an energy-efficient strategy for driving trains was presented. These works have been limited by the conditions of use. Energies 2023, 16, 6733. https://doi.org/10.3390/en16186733 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies