Failure Analysis of Railroad Components

Because of the tough engineering environment of the railroad industry, fatigue is a primary mode of failure. The increased competitiveness in the industry has led to increased loads, reducing the safety factor with respect to fatigue life. Therefore, the existence of corrosion pitting and manufacturing defects has become more important. This article presents case histories that are intended as an overview of the unique types of failures encountered in the freight railroad industry. The discussion covers failures of axle journals, bearings, wheels, couplers, rails and rail welds, and track equipment.

Prediction of rail defect development using parametric bootstrapping modified Weibull equations

The railroad industry has historically used the 2-Parameter Weibull equation to determine the rate of rail fatigue defect occurrences and to forecast the fatigue life of railroad rail. However, the 2-Parameter Weibull equation has significant limitations to include inability to analyze segments of track with limited number of rail defects. These limitations are addressed through modification of the traditional 2-Parameter Weibull equation with a novel approach developed from Parametric Bootstrapping. The result is a Parametric Bootstrapping modified Weibull (PBW) forecasting approach. This methodology is applied to rail segments with insufficient numbers of defects to allow for appropriate defect forecasting analysis. Thus, the PBW method provides reasonable estimates of the rate of defects for track segments that have little or no prior defect history. This approach allows for more track to be analyzed and forecasts the probability of rail defect occurrence as a function of key parameters such as cumulative traffic over the rail. A validation of the proposed methodology was performed. Comparison of the output results of over 300,000 track segments with over 200,000 rail defects showed a major improvement in percentage of segments with reasonable Weibull parameters (alpha and beta). This percentage increased from 11% of segments using traditional Weibull analysis to 77% of segments using Parametric Bootstrap modified Weibull approach. These results show that the PBW Analysis approach introduced here offers a more accurate and effective approach to determining the probability of developing future rail defects. This provides a benefit to railroads in planning maintenance of their expensive rail assets.

Industrial disability in the Japanese railways business: the activity of Testudō Kōsaikai, 1931–1955

The industrialization process generated many disabilities. However, the historical study of industrial disability has not progressed. This study examines disability welfare in the Japanese railroad industry. In particular, Testudō Kōsaikai, an organization of the Japanese National Railways (JNR) established in 1931, was uniquely devoted to welfare activities by linking a profit-making business and the provision of welfare. To cover welfare costs, such as providing workshops for disabled people, Kōsaikai conducted profit-making businesses, such as sales at station stalls. However, the welfare of disabled people in the JNR, including the activities of Kōsaikai, has not been previously examined. This study clarified the structure of disability welfare in the Japanese railroad industry until the early postwar period. People with a lower degree of disability, such as one upper or lower member amputation, were employed by the JNR, while some of these people were employed by Kōsaikai as sellers or officers, or accepted job training in Kōsaikai workshops. On the contrary, although few people with higher degrees of disability were employed by the JNR and Kōsaikai, the latter employed their family members to compensate them for their living costs.

Why Incumbents (Usually) Prefer Weak Intellectual-Property Rights

This chapter challenges the conventional assumption that incumbents in technology markets lobby for strong IP rights to erect entry barriers and capture market rents. In the railroad industry in the late nineteenth century, in the software industry in the 1960s and 1970s, and in patent-reform debates since the mid-2000s, large vertically and horizontally (systems-level) integrated firms outside the pharmaceutical industry have generally advocated for weaker patents or resisted the extension of IP protection to new technologies. By contrast, smaller R&D-intensive entities and venture-capital firms have generally expressed the opposite position. A comprehensive study of all amicus briefs filed in Supreme Court patent-related litigation during 2006–2016 confirms this entity-specific divergence in IP-policy preferences. Historical and contemporary evidence supports the hypothesis that in a significant number of industries, weak patents protect incumbents by impeding entry by smaller innovators that lack comparable non-IP complementary capacities by which to capture returns on innovation.

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIAL POLICY DEVELOPMENT POLICY FOR ELECTRIC PROPULSION TO IMPROVE LOCAL CONTENT OF RAILWAY INDUSTRY

To fulfill the demand for a number of railroad products, the national railroad industry, in this case PT. INKA as a train integrator industry in Indonesia still has to import components. TKDN electric train is still low. For this reason, it is time to prepare the industrial development of the national railway propulsion system components and even have a very urgent nature. Railway propulsion systems can be classified into three groups, namely: Electric propulsion systems, Diesel Electric propulsion systems and Diesel Hydraulic propulsion systems. Import dependence, of course, cannot be allowed to continue because it will weaken the competitiveness of the national railroad industry. From the results of the analysis using the "Porter Diamond Condition" method various internal and external factors were identified through the SWOT method to formulate alternative policy formulations for the development of the railroad electric propulsion system industry in Indonesia. Qualitative SWOT data are developed quantitatively through the calculation of SWOT Analysis so that the exact position of the organization is known. From the results of the analysis, and calculations using the SWOT Method, the position of the railway propulation system industry is in the Quadrant IV position, so it is best to use a Defensive Strategy. In this position the Company faces a very unfavorable situation, the company faces various threats and internal weaknesses. For this reason, it is necessary to prioritize strengthening strategies in the Matrix (W-T). Key Words: Electric propulsion; Industrial development; Strategy

Producing and Measuring the 3rd Body Layer

Decades of measuring friction conditions at the wheel-rail interface have resulted in widely varying answers produced by different measurement methods and devices. This variation is a result of many factors, some of which are difficult to quantify and control, especially under field conditions. One of these variables is the presence of an unknown 3rd body layer material, whose accumulation on the wheel and rail surfaces affect the value of independent tests performed to quantify the nominal state of wheel on rail in actual operating conditions. This paper describes a series of tests undertaken to understand the creation of the 3rd body layer from the starting point of clean wheel and rail surfaces and how that can lead to new standard practices for field testing. A 2 × 2 matrix of wheel and rail conditions is defined to help formalize the discussion of the production and measurement of the 3rd body layer. Case 1 is the nominal virgin state of the two materials. This is actually fairly hard to produce. Almost any process and/or handling will leave some films on both surfaces. Lab tests typically start in this state after cleaning/degreasing the surfaces following machining or sanding. Cases 2 and 3 are potentially the same (clean wheel or rail), however, the more likely case is Case 2 where some existing location on actual track is chosen to determine its current state, thus the use of a Tribometer using a clean wheel. Case 4 represents the nominal state of most track with passing vehicles where the current environmental/ambient conditions encourage a particular set of 3rd body wear products. This formalization helps reveal the prior common practices that have produced assumptions of what is the ‘correct’ value and how that has created a bias in one’s thinking of what really exists in normal revenue service. This issue is particularly consequential in attempting to quantify the benefit of the friction modifiers that are being adopted across the railroad industry.

PENGEMBANGAN MATERIAL RINGAN SERAT GELAS PADA INDUSTRI KERETA API

The use of composite materials has been developed in the railroad transportation industry sector in Indonesia. For example, PT INKA has used composite materials with fiber glass reinforcement. The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics of tensile strength and bending strength of the composite material so that it can be proposed to be further developed and utilized by the manufacturing industry, especially the railroad industry. In this study, 4 types of matrix variations were examined, namely epoxy, repoxy, polyester, and bhispenol using fiber glass reinforcement. Tensile strength and bending strength tests were performed in accordance with the ASTM D-638 and the ASTM D-790 standards, respectively. The results of this study indicate that the variation of the matrix is very influential on the tensile strength and bending strength of composite materials. Keywords: composite material, glass fiber, tensile strength, bending strength Abstrak Penggunaan material komposit mulai banyak dikembangkan di sektor industri trasportasi kereta api di Indone-sia. Sebagai contoh, PT INKA sudah menggunakan material komposit dengan penguat serat gelas. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui karakteristik kekuatan tarik dan kekuatan bending material komposit agar dapat diusulkan untuk lebih dikembangkan dan dimanfaatkan oleh industri manufaktur, khususnya industri kereta api. Pada penelitian ini digunakan 4 jenis variasi matriks, yaitu epoxy, repoxy, polyester, dan bhispenol dengan menggunakan penguat serat gelas. Pengujian kekuatan tarik menggunakan standar ASTM D-638 dan pengujian bending menggunakan standar ASTM D-790. Hasil studi ini menunjukkan bahwa variasi matriks sangat berpengaruh pada kekuatan tarik maupun kekuatan bending material komposit. Kata-kata kunci: material komposit, serat gelas, kekuatan tarik, kekuatan bending

Overview of Air-Rail Passenger Transport Relationship from 1997 to 2018

World international passenger transport nowadays is dominated by air transport, while domestic passenger transport in certain region relies on rail transport. Aviation and railroad industry have been a rivalry since the introduction of commercial airlines. Although the relationships between both modes are initially competition, there are several other forms of relationship including cooperation and integration. This paper identified and categorized research themes for air-rail passenger transport relationship from research papers published between 1997 and 2018 by using content-based analysis. The literatures included in this paper focused on transportation science disciplines, namely economic, social, environment, and operations. Other analysis context are the analysis of word frequency and trend analysis for geographical area of research. Air-rail transport research themes were identified as modal comparison, modal influence, modal competition, modal cooperation, and modal integration. It has been found that in the early years, Europe is the region that dominate the research on air-rail passenger transport. However, China is an emerging country over the past five years. Additionally, research theme relies heavily on modal competition and modal influence.