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Extending maintenance intervals of track switches utilising multi-channel redundancy of actuation and sensing

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conference contribution
posted on 2016-03-31, 10:38 authored by Sam Bemment, Roger Goodall, Emma Ebinger, Christopher Ward, Roger Dixon
A concept for a novel track switch arrangement has been developed at Loughborough University, which, through a novel locking arrangement, allows parallel, multi-channel actuation and locking functions for the first time. This switch has been developed as part of the REPOINT project, and is referred to as the REPOINT switch. Existing track switches generally use a single-channel actuator and lock, and undergo an intensive maintenance and inspection regime to ensure an acceptable level of reliability/availability. This paper demonstrates, through mathematical modelling with very conservative assumptions, that an increase in switch availability is possible alongside a corresponding decrease in ongoing maintenance intensity using the REPOINT multi-channel approach. The paper firstly introduces the theory behind the design of the REPOINT switch, using a switch with 2-out-of-3 redundant actuation and sensing channels as an example. An existing switch is analysed using real-world data as a benchmark. Availability is determined by the target time in which Maintenance Teams must have replaced any failed components, expressed herein as τ. Availability measures are obtained as functions of τ which show the range of possible switch availability against maintenance response times, for the given set of assumptions. The results show that for a REPOINT installation, gains in system availability are possible even when response times are set many times longer than current standards, indicating a significant reduction in ongoing maintenance cost.

Funding

The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support provided by the United Kingdom EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and the United Kingdom RSSB (Railway Safety and Standards Board) in grant number EP/I010823/1, for the project titled REPOINT: Redundantly engineered points for enhanced reliability and capacity of railway track switching.

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

STECH 2015 The International Symposium on Speed-up and Sustainable Technology for Railway and Maglev Systems

Citation

BEMMENT, S.D. ...et al., 2015. Extending maintenance intervals of track switches utilising multi-channel redundancy of actuation and sensing. Presented at The International Symposium on Speed-up and Sustainable Technology for Railway and Maglev Systems (STECH 2015), Chiba, Japan, Nov 10-12th.

Publisher

© The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2015-09-13

Publication date

2015

Notes

This is a conference paper.

Language

  • en

Location

Chiba, JAPAN

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