David G. Toth

Performance of an on-board monitoring system in a revenue service demonstration

The Office of Research and Development of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is sponsoring a revenue service demonstration of an on-board condition monitoring system for freight trains. The objective of the system is to improve railroad safety and efficiency through continuous monitoring of mechanical components to detect defects before they cause breakdowns and accidents. The project, which commenced in June 1999, is part of the Rolling Stock Program Element in FRAs Five-Year Strategic Plan for Railroad Research, Development and Demonstrations (March 2002). Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Wilcoxon Research (WR) developed the prototype system in 2000. It was installed on a test vehicle provided by the Research and Tests Department at Norfolk Southern Corporation and was tested during the period Nov. 2000-Nov. 2001. In fall 2003 the monitoring system was installed on five hopper cars provided by Southern Company Services and is currently being tested in revenue service operation on a coal train operating on a Norfolk Southern route in Alabama between a coalmine northwest of Birmingham and Gaston Steam Plant in Wilsonville, AL. In this paper we discuss the performance of the monitoring system during the revenue service demonstration. The potential benefits of the technology are also addressed.

Revenue Service Demonstration of On-Board Condition Monitoring System

The Office of Research and Development of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is sponsoring a project to develop and demonstrate an on-board condition monitoring system for freight trains. The objective of the system is to improve railroad safety and efficiency through continuous monitoring of mechanical components in order to detect defects before they cause breakdowns and accidents. The project, which commenced in June 1999, is part of the Rolling Stock Program Element in FRA’s Five-Year Strategic Plan for Railroad Research, Development and Demonstrations [1]. Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Wilcoxon Research (WR) designed and developed a prototype system in 2000. The prototype system was tested during the period Nov. 2000–Nov. 2001 on a vehicle provided by the Research and Tests Department at Norfolk Southern Corporation. A Revenue Service Demonstration is scheduled to commence in October 2003. The monitoring system will be installed on five coal hopper cars and tested in revenue service. Southern Company Service is providing the test cars. The train will operate on a Norfolk Southern line between a coalmine near Berry, AL and an electric power plant, located 35 miles southeast of Birmingham. The demonstration is scheduled to run for six months. The demonstration will showcase some of the latest technologies in wireless communications and railroad bearings. A tri-mode cell telephone will be used for data telemetry between the on-board monitoring system and a web-accessible database. The Timken Company has developed two innovative systems that will be deployed in the demonstration — a permanent magnet generator mounted inside a Class F railroad bearing and bearing health monitoring system featuring temperature and vibration sensors, a tachometer, a micro-controller and an RF transmitter mounted inside a Class F bearing.Copyright

Validation Testing of Bearing Temperature Differentials and Identification of Root Causes on Selected Union Pacific Railroad Hot and Warm Trend Set-Outs

This paper is the summary report on work started in 2007, and initially introduced in a presentation at the joint ASME – TTCI Bearing Symposium in Chicago in September of 2007 [1]. The identification of the root cause(s) for “warm bearing trend” temperatures has also been the subject of other technical papers [2, 3]. Traditional railroad journal bearing hot box detector (HBD) systems monitor journal bearing temperatures, and typically provide an alarm based on a measured in-service bearing absolute temperature, or against a programmed “delta” over the ambient temperature level. More recently, bearing operating temperatures have been statistically analyzed for temperature “trending”, and identification of temperature “outliers”, or bearings which display a higher temperature relative to the majority of bearings in the same train. AAR rules now facilitate the removal from service of bearings which either: 1) exceed traditionally defined limits, or 2) meet the statistical criteria set forth by these newly established AAR industry rules, to ideally prevent or eliminate “burn off journals” and potential derailments. This study is focused on testing of railroad journal bearings that were removed from service for “Why Made Code 50” (an “overheated” journal bearing), and exhibited no visually obvious external signs of distress. Dynamic testing and a corresponding tear down investigation to determine the root cause(s) for the elevated temperature was performed for the trend and mate bearings. This dynamic rig testing and corresponding investigation(s) have resulted in the determination of a significant and potential root cause for warm trend bearings.Copyright