TRACK TECHNOLOGY
Understanding the causes of low adhesion
Low adhesion is a major problem for the railways, in terms of performance, safety and cost, but a new research project aims to shed more light on the phenomenon. RTM spoke to Dr Helen Viner, chief scientist at the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), and Dr David Thompson of Balfour Beatty.
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of accelerometers to try to put into practice some previously theoretical approaches to low adhesion monitoring.
TRL, the Transport Research Laboratory, is leading the project with Balfour Beatty Rail and ‘Accelerating Innovation in Rail’ programme.
Balfour Beatty Rail had an existing project with system to two 159s, as well as some EMUs.
accelerometers to one of the 159s, as part of research into better measurement technology that will enable the phenomenon of low adhesion to be better understood and railhead treatments to be better targeted.
The instrumented train covers about 1,000km per day on its routes from Waterloo to generates 3GB of raw data.
TRL analysis is ongoing, and it is too early to say for sure whether the method will prove gone wrong was if we hadn’t recorded anything interesting with the accelerometers.
“That’s not the case: we can certainly see from interesting, and we’re getting quite excited about it.
“But we’ve still got work to do before we can say that what we are measuring is linked throughout the autumn, we’ll be able to look back and compare with forecasts and actual delay-attributions to see whether our measurements link to conditions that were being experienced.”
Not just leaf fall
The causes of low adhesion are not comprehensively understood and there are no measurement methods that are suitable for widespread and routine monitoring of adhesion conditions. Although associated with leaf fall, adhesion problems can be experienced throughout the year.
modelling by Loughborough University suggesting the accelerations experienced by wheelsets and bogies are indicative of local on this work.
measurements.
“The train operators are more organised about the treatments they apply, but the trouble is that the phenomenon of low adhesion is not very well understood. We do a lot of work with skid resistance on the road network, measurement of which is very routine; if we had a similar system on the railways capable of being used routinely, then at the minimum we’d build up a better pattern of where the problems were and when they were likely to happen. Ideally, if it to a high proportion of rolling stock, then you’d be able to react to conditions in real-time.
has tried to put this approach into practice for detecting adhesion conditions. This was the ideal opportunity, and the accelerometers are now generating an absolutely vast amount of
“We’re hoping that by March/April, we’ll be is telling us, and work with them and other interested industry partners to see how we take it forward another step.”
That could include better targeting of railhead treatment, but also potentially incorporating
to be in real-time, so would certainly be some would probably be a more targeted research programme, where we try to understand the phenomena better, before moving – if we can get it working – into real-time monitoring, providing real-time feedback and operational data.”
Track geometry monitoring
explained that the TrueTrak analysis engine, the hardware for which can be either body- on all bar one of Network Rail’s track recording vehicles. It’s now “the routine track geometry monitoring kit for the UK”, he said. Fitting it to passenger service vehicles is still comparatively are being built with the systems pre-installed, to get unattended track geometry monitoring to supplement the less-frequent audit runs by to three times a day level of track geometry data collection,” he said. “The more data you have, the easier it is to plot trends and quickly identify faults.”
track geometry monitoring system with the new sensors, and said: “It’s an interesting project, and I see it as a very useful add-on.
“If it can be done simply by adding a couple of additional accelerometers – with the rest done in software – then it’s a fairly easy win for anyone who already has a geometry system.”
W:
www.trl.co.uk FOR MORE INFORMATION
rail technology magazine Dec/Jan 15 | 43
Dr Helen Viner
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