Research of vibration in railway rolling stock mechanical parts

In the process of railway rolling stock operation the most crucial units, subjected to sudden failures, are critical for the whole rolling stock. These primarily include electrical and mechanical units, where troubleshooting within operational process is rather difficult.

The most effective methods of defects detection in rotary mechanical equipment are thermal and vibroacoustic ones, however the thermal method allows only to establish the fact of the unit destruction, or detect defects at a late stage of their development, while the vibroacoustic method of non-destructive testing allows to detect both incipient and developed defects.

A large number of noise components, accompanied with interaction between a wheel and a track, has lead to a conclusion that an objective vibroacoustic health monitoring within operational process of the rolling stock rotary mechanical parts is rather difficult and sometimes is even impossible.

Meanwhile, to achieve a dynamic error equal to 1% (an acceptable level for critical equipment is 0.1%) it is necessary to carry out diagnostics at intervals of not more than 2 hours, which can realized only through implementation and application of on-board health monitoring systems.

The research purpose is to determine the most informative, from vibration analysis point of view, frequency range of a vibration signal for an expert system development and the railway rolling stock condition monitoring.

Primary analysis of data has proved that vibration parameters level on a traction motor differs significantly from vibration parameters levels on other electric motors, installed on the same car. This fact has allowed to presume the traction motor malfunction.

The analysis has shown that the vibration parameters level in different frequency bands is substantially influenced by the rolling stock running speed and operating modes. It has been also established that units with different state of health are influenced in a different manner.

Discrete components of vibration acceleration envelope spectrum, corresponding to frequencies of these or those defects occurrence, are revealed in different speed modes that should be used in the expert system development.

As a result, characteristics of vibration parameters distribution in the rolling stock units within an electric multiple unit train motion in different frequency bands and speed modes have been determined, as well as impacts effect generated from variable speed and dynamic operating modes.

The research results are intended for application within development of the expert system, implemented in on-board systems for the rolling stock units condition monitoring.

Kostyukov Al.V., Tsurpal A.E., Basakin V.V. Research of vibration in railway rolling stock mechanical parts // Condition Monitoring and Machinery Failure Prevention Technologies (СМ/MFPT 2014)

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