Mr. Luc Imbert, Wabtec, ITALY

Mr. Matteo Frea, Wabtec, ITALY

With the ever-increasing railway traffic on existing lines railway operators are requesting means to increase line capacity, operational resiliency and lower Life Cycle Costs. WSP systems integrated in railway vehicles can address the three aspects.

Indeed, a shorter braking distance in low wheel/rail adhesion conditions can increase the line capacity by allowing the vehicles to safely travel closer to each other.

Furthermore, WSP systems with better performing algorithms in very and extremely low wheel/rail adhesion conditions would lead to less wheel locks and lower wheel slide velocities diminishing the number of wheel flats and overall wheel damage, thereby reducing the LCC. The increased performance in these conditions would also lead to an increased resiliency to environmental conditions.

As a follow-up to the work presented in the paper entitled “ADAPTIVE WHEEL SLIDE PROTECTION ALGORITHMS” - EB2019-IBC-010, a two-point investigation is led to evaluate how the A-WSP addresses the railway operators needs.

The first investigation will quantify the differences in terms of braking distance and air consumption between a WSP device incorporating a traditional WSP algorithm and a WSP device incorporating an adaptive WSP algorithm.

The second investigation will quantify differences in terms of wheel flats and wheel damage between a WSP device incorporating a traditional WSP algorithm and a WSP device using an adaptive WSP algorithm,

The quantification of both investigations will be done at least according to EN15595:2018 criteria and could be extended if these do not provide a holistic view of the differences.

The quantification will be based on the analysis of test results from a hardware in the loop test bench and on test results from the Multi-axle Roller Rig present in Wabtec’s laboratory.

In order to produce a realistic output, the hardware in the loop test bench and the Multi-axle Roller Rig will be configured according to the characteristics of an existing vehicle and subjected to a real mission profile including the most critical situation identified by railway operators.

Dr. Matteo Frea, Wabtec, ITALY

Mr. Luc Imbert, Wabtec, ITALY

With new technological breakthroughs come new challenges for all the actors across that same industry, and this can be said for the Automatic Train Operation in the railway industry.

This new way of operating trains increases the need for safe monitoring and management of the train’s braking performance.

The future brake systems are expected to reliably and predictably perform an emergency braking therefore ensuring a high accuracy of the train’s stopping distance.

To satisfy the need of the upcoming market, a new solution and method is proposed allowing to mitigate and compensate for degraded conditions, whether they are linked to environmental conditions (such as low wheel rail adhesion conditions) or failures of on-board equipment. The solution is based on the safe monitoring of the train deceleration and the safe management of the braking force allowing the new brake system to reach the targets of reliability and predictability of the emergency braking.

This solution is based on research and technologies developed in the frame of the Shift2Rail program (PINTA, PINTA2 and PIVOT2 projects), where Faiveley/Wabtec is fully engaged developing a new generation of adhesion management systems. Dedicated experimentations in relevant environment have shown promising signs on the reliability of the braking distance compared to the traditional systems.

Mr. Fabio Ferrara, WABTEC CORPORATION, ITALY

Mr. Astengo Federico, WABTEC CORPORATION, ITALY

Mr. Matteo Frea, WABTEC CORPORATION, ITALY

This paper describes the achievements and benefits obtained using an electronic-based Brake Control unit, METROFLEXX, suitable to perform Emergency and Service brake function with the high Safety Integrity Level (SIL). METROFLEXX replaces the complete traditional electro-pneumatic brake system, by performing a real time emulation of functions that are traditionally performed by pneumatic components. Therefore, METROFLEXX has been developed comply with the following CENELEC safety standards that represent the state-of-art for the railway transit market at European and worldwide level: EN 50126 (system level), EN 50129 (electronics hardware), EN 50128 (software), EN 50159 (safety related communication). An Independent Safety Assessment (ISA) has been completed by receiving the assessment report and the corresponding attestation of conformity from a recognized ISA company. Thanks to the METROFLEXX, several benefits can be achieved at system and train level, such as improved service reliability, improved safety and a better Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).