Abstract: The paper introduces the technical requirements of rail transit equipment and the widely used types of materials. Taking the body materials of rail vehicles as the entry point, it expounds and analyzes the transformation of the structural materials on rail vehicles. The paper compares the impact of domestic and foreign rail transit vehicle components on the development of new materials as well as related engineering application cases, predicts the future trends of composites for rail transit equipment, points out the main problems of fiber-reinforced composites in engineering application, and makes suggestions to the development directions and research focus of composites for rail transit.

Key words: rail transit; fiber-reinforced composites; transformation; load-bearing structure