Wheel/rail-force–based maintenance interval extension of the C80 series wagon

Purpose–This study aims to introduce the achievements and benefits of applying wheel/rail-force–based maintenance interval extension of the C80 series wagon in China.Design/methodology/approach–Chinese wagons’existing maintenance strategy had left a certain safety margin for the characteristics of widely running range,unstable service environment and submission to transportation organization requirements.To reduce maintenance costs,China railway(CR)has attempted to extend the maintenance interval since 2020.The maintenance cycle of C80 series heavy haul wagons is extended by three months(no stable routing)or 50,000 km(regular routing).However,in the meantime,the alarming rate of the running state,a key index to reflect the severe degree of hunting stability,by the train performance detection system(TPDS)for the C80 series heavy haul wagons has increased significantly.Findings–The present paper addresses a big data statistical way to evaluate the risk of allowing the C80 series heavy haul wagons to remain in operation longer than stipulated by the maintenance interval initial set.Through the maintenance and wayside-detectordata,whichis divided intothreestages,the extension period(three months),the current maintenance period and the previous maintenance period,this method reveals the alarming rate of hunting was correlated with maintenance interval.The maintainability of wagons will be achieved by utilizing wagon performance degradation modeling with the state of the wheelset and the often-contact side bearing.This paper also proposes a statistical model to return to the average safety level of the previous maintenance period’s baseline through correct alarming thresholds for unplanned corrective maintenance.Originality/value–The paper proposes an approach to reduce safety risk due to maintenance interval extension by effective maintenance program.The results are expected to help the railway company make the optimal solution to balance safety and the economy.

ONLINE GRINDING WHEEL WEAR COMPENSATION BY IMAGE BASED MEASURING TECHNIQUES

Automatic compensation of grinding wheel wear in dry grinding is accomplished by an image based online measurement method. A kind of PC-based charge-coupled device image recognition system is schemed out, which detects the topography changes of the grinding wheel surface. Profile data, which corresponds to the wear and the topography, is measured by using a digital image processing method. The grinding wheel wear is evalualed by analyzing the position deviation of the grinding wheel edge. The online wear compensation is achieved according to the measure results. The precise detection and automatic compensation system is integrated into an open structure CNC curve grinding machine. A practical application is carried out to fulfil the precision curve grinding. The experimental results confirm the benefits of the proposed techniques, and the online detection accuracy is less than 5 um. The grinding machine provides higher precision according to the in-process grinding wheel error compensation.