Abstract
Modernization of aged rolling stock is one of the possibilities to adapt it to the current requirements for better environmental friendliness and economy of railway transport. However, some vehicle upgrades lead to new failures that were not observed in the original vehicles. The cause is the so-called “hybrid design”, built on a combination of original and selected new components. The aim of the work was to improve the situation with frequent failures and unavailability that occur on the modernized locomotive where a new diesel engine and new electronic control system was installed. Within the work, a simplified methodology for evaluating the outputs of diagnostic equipment was developped based on and applied to specific locomotive type and its diesel engine. The methodology resulted in a significant reduction of the time for assessing the condition of the vehicle’s diesel engine and more effective maintenance. The paper also presents other possibilities in the analysis of big data in the maintenance of rolling stock e.g. using fuzzy logic.
Highlights
The basic function/purpose of maintenance of railway vehicles is to keep them running safely and economically for expected life cycle
Methodology for building a strategy of maintenance focused on safety of railway vehicles using RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) analysis is described in [45] where on the example of a diesel locomotive it was found that this analysis enables proper classification of hazards, quantification of the frequency of occurrence of hazards and the adoption of the appropriate criteria for risk assessment of the created strategy
With the proposed classical approach, both accelerated life tests and design of experiments technology are used to determine how each critical factor affects the prediction of performance, in this study demonstrated on a locomotive wheel-set reliability, being a safety critical component
Summary
The basic function/purpose of maintenance of railway vehicles is to keep them running safely and economically for expected life cycle. European Union is aware of importance of good technical condition of rail vehicles and the role of maintenance. It adapted extensive requirements and legislation in the area of rail safety. As stated Mlynarski et al the economic indicators of the operation process are one of the most important indicators of the use of vehicles in transport systems. This is because it is the operation management that largely determines the proper functioning of the entire business company [28]
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