Summary
Client industry:
Rail Transportation
The Challenge:
Adhesion is a critical aspect of the railway. Sanding is a mandated safety system fitted to trains to improve the adhesive conditions to assist in acceleration and braking. Slipping and sliding of the wheel on the rail is not desirable as it leads to deterioration of both assets. Sand is injected directly into the wheel/rail interface to increase the coefficient of friction. But when the sand runs out, the wheel is at risk of significant damage. The implications of this are increased downtime, reduced wheel life and more expensive maintenance.
Maintenance teams, keen to ensure that there is always sufficient sand available on the trains, have implemented nightly visual checks and manual topping up of the sandboxes, along with regular system maintenance activities to ensure that the sand delivery system (pneumatic and electronic systems) are functioning optimally. Whilst there is always going to be a need to physically fill the sandboxes on the trains, technology is now available to allow the maintenance teams to remotely monitor the condition of the system and take appropriate action when required.
The Solution:
Working with Porterbrook, BlueCube has developed and implemented a laser measurement sensor within the sandbox on the Class 15x fleet. This innovative application of laser technology measures the level of the sand within the sandbox. Raw data is collected on the train, transmitted via secure data channels to BlueCube’s secure, advanced Microsoft based platform BlueCloud, which then delivers a range of insights via mobile and desktop interfaces including:
Dashboarding suitable for fleet maintenance control staff to assist in the planning of forthcoming maintenance interventions.
Work orders for on-depot maintenance technicians to allow them to target their efforts on vehicles which need an intervention (and not waste time checking vehicles which don’t);
Through AI on big data, advise Fleet managers whether there are vehicles using more or less sand than expected, allowing them to undertake tailored maintenance interventions on specific vehicles.
Health reporting to provide confidence that the sanding system is functioning correctly, underpinning the condition-based maintenance strategy for the sanding system, and ensuring that the safety and operational risks remain ALARP.
The Results:
From initial discussions to the delivery of meaningful, actionable insights, this collaborative project between Barnbrook and Rail partners was completed in 4 weeks with Capex costs of less than £5,000 per vehicle and highly attractive opex costs given the chosen transmission methods and data sampling rates.
Head of Fleet commented: “Barnbrook delivered a technical solution to this age-old problem using its excellent BlueCube family. Since its installation, no vehicles have run out of sand and the number of SPADs and station overrun events has reduced, bringing greater confidence for our operational colleagues. The Maintenance team at Tysley depot and various outstations are now spending less time filling sandboxes and less time undertaking routine VMI tasks which check the function of the sanding system. The teams trust what the BlueCloud is telling them. The redeployment of staff has bought additional reliability and quality improvements to the fleet.”
Andrew Barnett, Managing Director of Barnbrook commented: “This innovative deployment of our tried and trusted BlueCube products and services has once again been proven to bring benefits to the train operators. Working closely with industry partners, we have delivered a turnkey solution which met all safety and reliability requirements and has led to a condition-based maintenance regime being implemented which has improved fleet availability and reduced costs.”
Whilst the results are impressive so far, further refinement is underway to provide additional insights for use by the wider industry. One area under consideration is identifying locations of high sand-usage for Network Rail to be able to treat the rails or remove trees in a targeted manner. Furthermore, using the BlueCube hardware installed as a platform, the teams are exploring monitoring opportunities of other on-train systems which have a positive business case.
Maximising Investment
Barnbrook’s BlueCube range of IIoT solutions are of a modular and expandable design. As the units auto configure, adding another sensing capability can be as simple as plugging in another sensor and wait for the extra information to start flowing into the client dashboard.
Key Partners & Clients
● Porterbrook ● Angel ● Icomera ● Cummins ● Scotrail ● GWR ● Chiltern Railways ● Bombardier ● Alstom
Contact us
We would be delighted to talk to you about how our monitoring technology could bring cost effective insights in your own applications.