Regulatory Framework for Ensuring Safe Operation of Railway Equipment Based on the Service Life of Load-Bearing Structures

Abstract

Switching the operation of railway equipment to life cycle contracts and confirming its safety compliance with industry technical regulations in the absence of a legislative framework for the recall of substandard products entails the need for a more thorough analysis of resource indicators of structural components of rolling stock and track superstructure. From this point of view, the state of the existing regulatory framework for confirming the strength and service life criteria of load­bearing elements of rolling stock and track, the influence of the regulatory «guillotine» and the general transition from the system of Soviet state standards GOSTs and strength rules to modern approaches of certification and differentiation of such concepts as «standard» and «supporting standard».Trends in moving away from classical bench testing methods towards introduction of a resource-based approach with defectiveness assessment are shown using examples of previously carried out research on safe operation of ER200 bogie frame and on the transition to domestic cassette bearings as part of import substitution, currently carried out for different types of rolling stock.Based on the new methods and approaches, it is possible to consider longer periods of operation, reasonably assess the extension of service life, or introduce resource-restoring technology, ensuring further safe operation. As part of these new trends, a transition is being made to modern modelling methods for assessing product safety, concepts such as «virtual sensor» and «virtual train-track system» are being introduced. It is shown that a reasonable combination of full-scale operational tests and virtual digital modelling makes it possible to offer reliable estimates of service life and safety indicators at the design and operation stages in a short time.