Use of electro-dynamic braking on locomotives and its effect on rolling contact fatigue

• ABSTRACT: The mining company LKAB uses IORE locomotives to haul iron ore trains. When evaluated using life cycle cost (LCC) analysis for reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety (RAMS), wheel life is found to be 930,000 km. The IORE locomotives are equipped with electro-dynamic (ED) brakes, but because of the inability of the contact grid to handle the full regenerative energy from the locomotives, the use of theED-brake was restricted until the contact grid was upgraded in 2010. From around 2011, the wheel life started to decrease because of increased rolling contact fatigue (RCF), dropping to around 350,000 km. LKABsuspected the use of the ED-brake was contributing to the RCF problem. A field test compared one locomotive with ED-braking reduced to a minimum level to a locomotive with full ED-braking capacity. The wheels of the two locomotives were visually inspected at intervals of about 13,000 km. The results showed no difference in RCF performance between the locomotives.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Annan samhällsbyggnadsteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Other Civil Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Rolling contact fatigue

electro-dynamic braking

EDC

RCF

railway

Operation and Maintenance Engineering

Drift och underhållsteknik

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)