2021-11-25
Cooperation between Voith and Siemens Mobility: New strategies for the maintenance of Scharfenberg couplers
- Integration of an app designed by Voith for the condition assessment of automatic train couplers into the Railigent® Application Suite from Siemens Mobility
- Three years of data collection serve as the basis for the development of the algorithm
- Goal: Longer maintenance cycles, saving of one overhaul of the coupler during the entire service life and cost reduction
As part of the cooperation, Voith is developing an algorithm that enables forecasts on the condition of automatic couplers. These should lead to longer maintenance intervals for the couplers. The predictions for this are made with the help of the new OnCare.Health Schaku app from Voith, which will be integrated into the Railigent® Application Suite from Siemens Mobility. Railigent brings together all relevant data on the status of a rail system in an open ecosystem. By intelligently analyzing the data, the application suite creates significant added value and generates recommendations for action with the aim of optimizing rail operations from individual system components to the entire rail infrastructure.
During the first phase of the project, which will last three years, the Siemens Mobility service teams will first collect relevant data on the condition of the Scharfenberg coupler. A total of 84 trains of the Rhein-Ruhr-Express serve as the data pool. Siemens Mobility has been commissioned to carry out maintenance for the vehicles. Each train is equipped with two Scharfenberg couplers. During its annual inspections, the Siemens Mobility Services team measures key data of the couplers, such as coupling slack or protrusion, and also records their condition as an image. In addition, any maintenance measures taken and numerous other vehicle data, such as the number of couplers and temperature, are included in the data pool, which will be transmitted via Railigent and which is evaluated at Voith.
Based on the data, the Voith team, consisting of analysts, service experts and development engineers, creates predictions about the wear of the couplers. Already during this first phase of the project, maintenance intervals are to be extended in such a way that one overhaul of the coupler can be saved during the entire service life of the vehicle.
The goal of the second project phase is to derive an algorithm from the available information. This will then form the basis for the OnCare.Health Schaku app designed by Voith that will be integrated into Railigent. Once both phases have been completed, the findings will be continuously validated to enable even more accurate forecasts in the long term and to develop further improvements to Voith and Siemens Mobility products and services. The project is then scheduled to run until 2031 at the most.
About the company
The Voith Group is a global technology company. With its wide range of plants, products, services and digital applications, Voith sets standards in the markets for energy, paper, raw materials and transport & automotive. Founded in 1867, Voith today has more than 20,000 employees and earns 4.2 billion euros in sales. It has locations in over 60 countries and is one of Europe’s larger family-owned companies.
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The Group Division Voith Turbo is part of the Voith Group and a specialist for intelligent drive technology, systems as well as tailor-made services. With its innovative and smart products, Voith offers highest efficiency and reliability. Customers from highly diverse industries such as oil and gas, energy, mining and mechanical engineering, ship technology, rail and commercial vehicles rely on the advanced technologies and digital applications of Voith.
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