UITF

Railway Technology and Innovation Unit

International Projects – Seventh Framework Programme – FP7

EMEF is working in a project called SAFERAIL (www.saferail.net). This project has a total budget of 4.5 M€ and is partly funded by a grant from the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme – FP7. The main purpose of SAFERAIL is to minimize failures associated with wheels and axles trough the development and implementation of two new wheelsets non-destructive systems. The first, an on-line system mounted on the rail, which combines high-frequency vibration analysis module to detect shells, cracks and severe profile abnormalities, an acoustic emission module to detect flats and bearing failures and a thermography module capable of inspecting wheelsets for cracks, brake defects and hot bearings. The second, an off-line system, that combines electromagnetic and ultrasonic inspection for fast and reliable verification of new and used wheelsets quality during the production and maintenance stages that will allow the identification of small surface defects , which the current systems have problems to identify. These two systems will be provided with artificial intelligence in order to make an automatic diagnosis and to report the defects found. SAFERAIL involves 11 companies from 6 different countries (Portugal, France, Belgium, Greece, Cyprus and UK). Each company has well-defined tasks in the project. EMEF’s role is to support the non-destructive systems development by providing railway knowledge and facilitating on-line and off-line tests of rolling stock. EMEF offer a test track which is ideal for projects requiring controlled on-line testing.

Executives’ Meeting

A meeting of EMEF’s Executives took place the 17th November 2007, at the Centro Cultural do Entroncamento, under the theme “Innovate & Develop”.

After the overture speech by the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Carlos Frazão, both the institutional DVD and the renewed company’s website were presented to the audience, after which some of the executives presented interventions subordinated to the meeting’s theme.

After lunch, served at EMEF’s premises, in which were present the company’s executives as well as the recipients of the “2007 Innovation and Conception Awards” and the distinguished company workers with a career spanning over 40 years, the Innovation and Conception Award Cerimony and the distribution of tokens celebrating that very distinction took place.

The meeting ended with an address by the Chairman of CP’s Management Board and Chairman of EMEF’s Board of Administrators, Francisco Cardoso dos Reis.

Testing Equipment for the Brake System’s

Pneumatic Panel

Manuel Simões Freire Domingues was awarded the Second Place, ex aequo, in EMEF’s 2006 Innovation & Development Awards.

When a train travels at such high speeds it is of absolute importance that, other than high levels of performance by other components, such as the suspension, the braking system is perfectly operational and responds within the predetermined parameters of efficiency, within normal periods of time and with a level of confidence that is established by constructors, in the same norm universally accepted in the railway world.

Under these conditions it is required that the pneumatic panel, command center and overall system control are all highly reliable in normal working conditions and are also able to maintain that level of reliability throughout the workshop interventions.

The Testing Equipment for the Pneumatic Panel, awarded with the I&D Prize, had as primary targets: the testing, after a Global Repair, of the SIEMENS 5600 complete braking system’s Pneumatic Panel, under real working conditions; the isolated testing of the RLV Valves, which function as pressure multipliers, of the Small B26 Panel which interfaces between the machinist’s orders and the pneumatic panel and the pressure measurement with several levels of regulation.

Benefits for EMEF

Internal cost reduction, which reduce the final costs for customers.

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Reliability Management Application

for Tilting Trains

Eduardo António Silva, was awarded with the Second Place, ex aequo, in EMEF’s 2006 Innovation & Development Awards.

The first idea for the PGF4000 project came around back in 2003, when the only available instrument to register, search and control pending or concluded malfunctions in tilting trains, was the MP5 application used by EMEF and a registry file for pending repairs, archived locally at the Unit’s records.

With an unadjusted equipment structure, sluggishness in processing the malfunction registrations, and searches which were not only slow but difficult, with few criteria for selection and filtering, the MP5 was becoming less and less suited to the history management of malfunctions and repairs in CPA’s.

It was within this context that the initial development of an application for the registration, control and analysis of malfunctions took place. The application’s first version was deployed in April, 2004, at the Tilting Trains Workshop.

Main objectives for the Reliability Management Application:
To build, from scratch, an application based on the Reliability Centred Maintenance 2 concept, which could address those specific needs as well as the features the MP5 could not.

Benefits for EMEF

The timely management and planning for the resolution of pending jobs, the planning and management of personnel needed to work on repairs, significant reduction of time used by the staff in charge of Workshops, in planning interventions, or obtaining a full and detailed history of interventions within an unit’s structure and a better control of jobs pending due to their waiting for additional parts.

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Diagnostic System

for the Testing of Door Blocks

Bruno Rosa Marques Luís, was awarded the First Place in EMEF’s 2006 Innovation & Development Awards.

As time goes on Electronics enable us to use a greater diversity of equipment, with numerous functions and with an intrincate level of technological advance. This means that the electronics area has gone through an exponential level of development these last few years, therefore, sometimes, for people who work in this area’s repairs, it’s hard to keep up with the latest and greatest.

The difficulties have grown with time, however the constant effort, relentless committment and daily studying of these matters associated with several new tools that have been developed, enable us to better perform our tasks, at prices that are better adjusted towards the clients expectations.

In the absence of electronic support schemes, detailed technical documentation and the appropriate benchmark facilities for the diagnostic of the new electronic circuitry, a need for the creation of methods, approach strategies and development of tools is created within the repair staff.

Under these circumstances, we present a totally independent Diagnostic System, aimed at testing in a sophisticated and absolute manner the Command Blocks for the UQE3500′s passenger access doors. This Diagnostic System was created with the intention of cutting costs and time need to repair this type of equipment, by also enabling an increase of qualiy in these repairs.

All this following the company’s policies of satisfaction towards its clients.

Benefits for EMEF

Initially, the 36 stages of testing for the Door Block Control took 20 days to be completed, whereas with the aid of Bruno Luís’ Diagnostic System, the same tests are reduced to a period of 3 minutes, while being highly reliable and safe for the system operator, and fully complying to the satisfaction parameters established by the Quality Assurance Criteria promoted by EMEF.

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