Railway condition monitoring technology and condition maintenance:
Learn how new rail condition monitoring technology and condition-based maintenance can help you extend maintenance intervals. kelle’ railway-specific products and services help you reduce life cycle costs by allowing you to realize the full potential of your bearings.
Railway locomotive status maintenance:
Time- and mileage-based maintenance remain the most common inspection and repair methods for locomotives. This means that maintenance of critical components is carried out based on the distance traveled, regardless of the degree of damage. However, these methods are time-consuming and do not ensure operators are able to better utilize the potential service life of their components. Condition monitoring solutions provide real-time updates on the status of your bearings and other components. This way you avoid taking the bearing out of service prematurely and only remove it when necessary. With advanced diagnostics, you can get early warning of any deterioration in bearing condition. In turn, you have enough time to plan maintenance before failure occurs. Extend maintenance intervals, extend service life and save costs by taking a proactive, cost-effective approach to improved inventory management.
Railway locomotive bogies and wheelsets:
The bogie is a complex railway vehicle subsystem, including the braking system, drive system, wheel pair subsystem and bogie frame with auxiliary spring system. Although different bogies are designed for different purposes, they serve the same function. This includes supporting rail vehicle bodies, helping to ensure track stability and provide ride comfort. The axlebox is directly connected to the wheelset and bogie frame, and contains the axlebox bearing system, which is connected to other subsystems and components. Depending on the railway gauge, wheel diameter and axle weight, wheelsets can have different arrangements and designs. Since all of these systems are critical to the performance and reliability of a rolling stock, careful consideration is crucial when selecting a solution. At SKF, we offer a variety of solutions designed to help ensure reliable and cost-effective operations. Discover the one that’s right for you.
Railway locomotive axle box:
The need for shorter delivery times and improved risk management requires increasingly reliable rail solutions. As the connection design element between the bogie rotating wheelset and the quasi-static frame, the axle box plays a vital role in the reliability of the rolling stock. Superior axlebox solutions are required due to the considerable impact on track reliability and economy. kelle has a global axlebox sourcing and support network, providing design and engineering support throughout the entire life cycle, including customization combined with proven design concepts. Our kits typically include factory lubricated and sealed, ready-to-install wheel set bearing units, sensors and monitoring systems for the axle boxes. With our solutions, you can meet your performance needs without increasing operational risk. Due to increased reliability, you are sure to shorten life cycles and reduce maintenance costs.
Railway locomotive drive system bearings:
Drive systems such as train gearboxes and traction motors must be powerful, sustainable, cost-effective and require minimal maintenance. These requirements are becoming increasingly important due to increasingly longer maintenance intervals and developments in rail vehicle weight. Traction motors must deliver high speeds and handle shock loads, but also resist low load conditions, such as in coasting or cruise control modes. Additionally, susceptibility to electrical discharges results in unique design challenges for traction motor bearings. Gearbox design requirements also place high demands on gearbox bearings and bearing arrangements. Specific challenges include wide operating temperature ranges, high shock loads, and increased overall loads in combination with drives to reduce friction within the gearbox and reduce energy consumption.
kelle has extensive experience in railway drive bearing design. Our drive system bearings are designed to handle high contamination levels and operate in wet environments and conditions of varying speed, temperature, load, vibration and shock. In addition to developing new innovative solutions, kelle also offers a range of commonly used bearings and bearing units with good field experience, as well as drive system references, to make the selection of suitable products easier during the design phase.
From providing design expertise and advanced wheelset bearings, to installing lubrication systems, validating safety requirements, installing bearings and more – kelle provides a wide range of rail solutions worldwide. This includes our core capabilities in wheel and drivetrain bearing design, as well as a global network of production, service and remanufacturing centers. Supported by an extensive network of sales, applications and service engineers, kelle helps improve the safety, reliability, efficiency and extend service intervals of rolling stock.
kelle can also provide insights into the operation of rail vehicle bogie systems. To this end, kelle combines bearing design and manufacturing expertise with cutting-edge condition monitoring and application knowledge. By collecting and analyzing data over the entire life of a train, kelle helps enhance next-generation rail design in ways previously impossible.
