Justification of Safe Operation of Rolling Stock by the Lifetime of Its Bearing Structures

Abstract

The problem of providing strength and reliability of rolling stock bearing structures which include welded and cast parts of bogie frames and bodies of cars and locomotives, as well as brackets and attachment points for their equipment and traction drive units, is one of the most important in the design, construction and operation. The development of high-speed and heavy-haul traffic, as well as the introduction of requirements for determining the design service life and life time of railway transport facilities, make the above task even more urgent. The influence of the operational loading characteristics of the object on the safety factor of fatigue strength and its depletion: amplitudes of cyclic stresses, frequencies of their change, parameters characterizing the intensity of the rolling stock operation (number of loading cycles, speed of movement, average daily mileage) is shown based on the results of computational and experimental studies carried out with running dynamic and strength tests of locomotives at all operating speeds of their movement in operation.