High maintenance costs of the rail network by of-round wheels, polygons, flats, noise complaints from residents, use restrictions
- An issue in your company?


Might occur during use out-of-roundness (polygons) on individual wheels. Polygons can be heard as a booming rolling noise relatively uniform volume and stimulate vehicle components (eg inner lining, floor) to vibrations at. Polygons impair travel comfort and create an additional vibration stress of certain components. This should be eliminated by turning or rotating milling on an underfloor wheel processing machinery. Polygon formation is not only a geometric runout, but causes an inhomogeneous distribution of hardness in the wheels. If these embrittleed are not removed during processing, the wheel will be out-of-round (memory effect) once again after a short period of operation. Thus, a material removal of about 5 mm for the permanent removal of the relatively small eccentricities is required, which means a considerable economic loss in wear stock of the wheel of 40 mm.

A flat section is formed when the wheel of the moving vehicle does not longer roll, but slides over the rail ("slide"). By flats and polygons result very high dynamic forces with a plethora of serious consequences for rails, superstructure and vehicles:

  • Risk of rail breakage when driving through occurring "blows" (mainly in frost periods).
  • Damage to the track geometry - The influence of the applied force spectra into the track on the track quality decay rate can not be overestimated. Therefore, the planned route for an operation and the rolling stock used has a great influence on the frequency of maintenance work to be performed and the associated costs. A wheel load fluctuation of 30% is already attracting a 1.6-fold faster track geometry deterioration after themselves. This means that vehicles with out-of-round wheel units or ride instability damage the track disproportionately. There are also reductions because of the "liquid becoming" (elastic-liquid behavior) of the ballast at frequencies above 40Hz.
  • False brinelling refers to the emergence of wavy indentations in the driving mirror of railroad tracks. The causes are varied, more often they come about by abrasive wear during braking and cornering of trains and irregularities of the wheels.
  • During the trip can be heard a periodically occurring noise in the frequency of the wheel rotation.
  • Development of common annealed flat spots on the wheel tread.
  • Creation of plots, that is to say of the rail surface abraded and usually right in front of the flat section on the wheel, or elsewhere on the wheel material applied may result in the worst case to wheel lock (canting of brake blocks).
  • Blows caused by flat spots, also influence the components of the axle box -> Bearing damage and hot runner.

Out- of- roundness or flats of a railway wheel have a negative effect on the smooth running and wear on the wheel and cause additional noise for residents. Therefore, the German Federal Government is pursuing a national noise target of halving poverty by 2020 is expected to emission-based track access charges and from 2020 onwards with use restrictions for non-compliant vehicles. The pressure of the residents and communities of interest is continuously increasing and has an impact on travel times, costs and returns. The noise reduction is a key issue for the rail system. In train sets emission and sources of damage must be detected wheel- and polluter exact. What action is required?

Solutions:

  • Strategically distributed wayside train monitoring systems throughout the network provide a broad and perfected vehicle and track monitoring. The network operator can observe with the tool LASCA® the actual quality of customer vehicles, classify and detect track excessively damaging vehicles on their path wheel accurate and timely.
  • Extension of the monitoring package with the wheel accurate and precise causation noise monitoring using the tools and MONI and MOVIE.
  • Non-discriminatory data acquisition and data processing of mixed traffic and by Railway Transport Company.
  • Track access charges could be on a route basis in accordance with the real driven actual load or the rail wear share and negotiated customized and shown within the infrastructure charges.
  • Reduction of dynamic forces in operational use to protect the infrastructure and vehicle fleet - Avoidance of wheel and rail breaks.
  • Reducing sound and vibration emissions - particularly noise and residents' complaints - filtered data release to increase acceptance.
  • Condition-based maintenance of the entire fleet - concentricity: "The most monitored fleet" - TÜV certified monitoring system.

Results:

  • Improving the quality of infrastructure by influencing the Railway Transport Companies.
  • Improve comfort for the passenger.
  • Reducing the noise nuisance to local residents.
  • Protection of sensitive railway facilities and significant resource and cost savings in maintenance.
  • Determination of RU-specific load and environmental profiles.
  • Accurate determination of the noise and damage sources as a basis for noise protection measures and train path pricing and the path price.
  • Refinancing of investment through the sale of data to the Railway Transport Companies.
  • Observation of track geometry changes and the wear behavior.
  • Determining an actual track assignment and detection of reserves.

Monitoring Systems