Wheel / Rail Adhesion

Wheel / Rail Adhesion

Solutions to evaluate and manage friction at the wheel/rail interface

Introduction

Getting the level of friction right between the wheel and the rail is crucial to operating a safe, reliable and efficient railway.

DeltaRail provides a suite of solutions that help customers to deal with adhesion related problems, including effective measures to manage problems caused by leaves on the line.

Key Features

• SmartSander® is DeltaRail's intelligent on-train sanding system which is offered with associated guidance, advice and assistance.
• WSPER® is a tool used to optimise the performance of Wheel Slide Protection (WSP) equipment.  It uses a combination of software and hardware to accurately replicate a wide range of low adhesion conditions in the laboratory.
• DeltaRail offers research services for understanding the mechanisms involved in the generation of wheel-rail adhesion.  These include conceptual design, specification of requirements, analysis of options and validation through data collection.  This research also includes the development of an Adhesion Management System.
• DeltaRail offers incident investigation services for events caused by poor adhesion and evaluation of the performance of the WSP systems of the vehicles involved.

Benefits of DeltaRail Systems

• Increases service punctuality and performance through improved wheel/rail friction.
• Reduces the cost of implementing particular adhesion solutions.
• Improves safety through appropriate driver training, and learning from low adhesion incidents.