Crystal snowflakes embellish the falcon-shaped train head and white streamers drift on the ice blue train body.

This is the Fuxing smart bullet train, a special edition officially put into operation on January 6 for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Such a decoration on the train bespeaks “auspicious snow heralding a warm spring”. It is co-designed by the industrial design team of the Institute of Human-machine Environmental System Design at Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJTU) and manufactured by China Railway Rolling Corporation (CRRC) Changchun Railway Vehicles Co., Ltd.

The designers drew on the operation experience and advanced technology of Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway, and concretized their concepts of intelligence, environment and humanity on the train, which demonstrate a seamless integration of science, technology and art.

“Constrained by space and scale, the design of this train is optimized to pursue the aesthetic realm of ‘rhythmic vitality’ and ‘integration of movement and stillness’ in structure and shape”, said Professor Xu Bochu, the SWJTU team leader. He introduced that the shape of the train should conform to the relevant principles of aerodynamics to the greatest extent as well as connotating the cultural significance and unique particularity of the Winter Olympics.

During the process, SWJTU team came up with over 40 schemes based on bionic design of high-speed train head, kept on improving and upgrading them, and eventually finalized the design for the exterior and shape of the train. Aerodynamic performance and appearance of the train are both taken into consideration in the design of the train head so that the resistance of the train is reduced by 7.9% and the comprehensive energy consumption more than 10% compared with the previous ones.

Dotted with snowflakes, the exterior of the train is painted in colors of silver and ice blue gradients, highlighting the theme of ice and snow of the modern Winter Olympics. With multiple streamers and color gradients to strengthen the speed of riding the wind and waves, the decoration conveys the famous Chinese omen: “auspicious snow heralds a warm spring”.

Led by Professor Xu Bochu, SWJTU team has spent more than ten years creating the marvel of Chinese high-speed trains and disseminated Chinese culture by virtue of technology in this process.

Sustained efforts have been made to tackle tough issues in the following three aspects: the coupling design of aerodynamic performance and modeling aesthetics of high-speed train head, the human-machine adaptation and comfort design inside the train, and the engineering transformation of design scheme. The coordination of those aspects provides strong support to the independent research and development of China's high-speed bullet trains represented by “Fuxing” and “Harmony 380A”.