IONICRAIL - Systemic rail head conditioning by alternative conditioning lubricants such as ionic liquids, and application equipment
Overview
Background & policy context:
The conditioning of rail heads serves for applying a defined coefficient of friction on the surface of the rail head. Effects caused by wear (debris and the modification of the wheel and rail profiles e.g.) and nasty acoustic effects (squeaking e.g.) shall be reduced or prohibited. Moreover a constant traction between the wheel and rail must be provided due to the conditioning. Therefore oils, greases and solid lubricants such as graphite can be applied. Due to environmental reasons mainly conditioning lubricants based on rapeseed oils are in use.
Objectives:
The rail head conditioning serves for applying a defined coefficient of friction on the surface of the rail head. This is important to provide constant traction between the wheel and rail. The disadvantages of the media currently in use for conditioning shall be avoided with a systematic/tribo-systematic approach with regard to the application of the media to the surface and the performance of the lubricant.
Methodology:
Within this project feasible methods for the fast lubrication of the rail head will be studied taking into account the necessary performance of the lubricant within the special fields of application.
The investigation of the potential rail lubricants – after a pre-selection – is based on field tests. Finally, a LCC estimation is carried out.
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