Rail Vehicles Brake Components Test Bench Utilisation

Abstract

Reduction of noise due to rolling contact of wheel and rail for fright cars is one of the principal tasks of the European railways to be solved. Experts of railways, industries and universities were engaged during the last about ten years to search for technical solutions. An important noise reduction of fright cars can be achieved by replacing the cast iron brake shoes by composite brake shoes. Doing that, two directions have been taken into consideration. This is due to the fact, that at that time most composite brake shoes were based on friction coefficients were far away from that ones of the cast iron brake shoes. Applying such friction materials on existing vehicles would have as a consequence the change of braking forces acting on the wheels. These types of brake shoes (K-block) show a friction coefficient which is higher than that one of cast iron. As a consequence the application of the silent composite brake blocks of type K affords the adaptation of the braking system of the vehicle, what is cost intensive. For these reason, the application of K-brake block was proposed for new built vehicles. For existing vehicles solutions having the same friction coefficient as the cast iron brake shoes were requested (LL-Brake doing in this way, the modification of the braking equipment of existing fright cars could be avoided.