Track and Bridge maintenance future scenario

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Track and Bridge maintenance future scenario
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Indian Railways- a complex system

• Mixed traffic
• Different category of routes
• Suburban sections
• Heavy mineral routes
• Sidings
• Variations in soil/subgrade
• Climatic variations
• Law and order situations (Theft prone areas)
• Coastal areas
• Corrosion prone areas
• Topographical variations
• Encroachment near track in some areas

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The linear infrastructure

• 1.2 lakh track kilometers
• 1.31 lakh bridges

500 different track machines
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Due to its diversity and size it is very
difficult to have a common cost effective
maintenance system
What can be the best maintenance system ?
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Present 3 tier system of track maintenance
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Maintenance practices

• Inspections, flaw detection, measurements and
  monitoring
• Systematic and spot attentions
• Special maintenance
• Casual and through renewals
• Deep screening
• Ballasting
• Reconditioning of crossing bodies

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Bridge maintenance present scenario

• Periodical inspections inspection registers
  NRS scrutiny is routine. Maintenance planning
  is done based on the scrutiny of inspection
  registers.
• Common maintenance/repair methods are grouting,
  flooring, shotcreting/guniting, replacing loose
  rivets, strengthening of members, painting ,
  oiling greasing/replacement of bearings,
  protection works etc.
• Distressed bridges are replaced/rebuilt/strengthen
  ed on programmed basis.

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Limitations need for efficient asset management
system

• Condition assessment is heavily dependent on
  inspections- inspections are routine over
  inspections replacement is on age basis based
  on GMT-no life cycle analysis- no cost
  consideration- highly subjective.
• Machine deployment is periodical and not
  scientific or need based- over maintenance.
  Chances of too early preventive and too late
  corrective maintenance.
• Measurements from TRC are not available in real
  time and user-friendly form -results are not
  being used for maintenance planning - indexing of
  results makes it highly subjective.

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Indian Railway Vision 2020 (Dec 2009)

• VISION STATEMENT
• Indian Railways shall provide efficient,
  affordable, customer-focused and environmentally
  sustainable integrated transportation solutions.
  It shall be a vehicle of inclusive growth,
  connecting regions, communities, ports and
  centers of industry, commerce, tourism and
  pilgrimage across the country. The reach and
  access of its services will be continuously
  expanded and improved by its integrated team of
  committed, empowered and satisfied employees and
  by use of cutting-edge technology.

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THE GOAL

• Vision 2020

The Vision 2020 aims at making railway operations
free of accidents and speaks about use of advance
technology to achieve the goal.
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The goal

• Passenger train speeds upto 160- 200 KMPH
• Freight train speeds upto 100 KMPH
• 50 KMPH speed on turnouts

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Critical mission area

• Early detection of flaws
• Mechanized maintenance of track
• Mechanized laying

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Maintenance (Management) Strategy.

• Standardization of Track structure 60 kg, 90 UTS
  rails and concrete sleepers with elastic
  fastenings
• Improvements in specifications of materials new
  types of elastic fastenings
• Economical designs of concrete sleepers modern
  mechanized methods of track-laying and
  maintenance
• Composite sleepers for locations unsuitable for
  standard design sleepers

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Strategy..

• Procurement of 120 m Rails , welded in flash-butt
  plants and laid in length of 250 mtrs to 500 mtrs
• Corrosion- resistant rails
• Welding by in situ by portable flash butt welding
  plants.
• Rail grinding and rail lubrication
• Improved switch expansion joints (SEJ)

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Maintenance strategy..

• All the maintenance and construction activities
  related to track shall be mechanized.
• Trackmen will be equipped with small track
  machines also. Rail Mounted vehicles
  (RMV)/Rail-cum-road.
• All the maintenance units will have
  communications from worksites in block sections
  to the control offices.
• Maintenance blocks shall be taken by P-way and
  Bridge Engineers through mobile phones by
  software encoding.
• Integrated assured blocks shall be made available
  so that a culture of zero defect and no
  surprises exists during operation of trains.

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Maintenance strategy

• Cost effective options for mechanized track
  maintenance, including by remote satellite
  control, shall be explored.
• There will be complete mechanization of track
  maintenance activities.
• A decision support system such as Track
  Management System (TMS) will be in place to
  optimize material, machine and equipment and
  manpower inputs for track recording-cum-
  monitoring on the entire IR network (including
  USFD cars capable of recording precisely the
  location of track irregularities).
• Suitable techniques for data mining will be
  developed so that track maintenance philosophy
  shifts from present find and fix to measure
  and predict.
• Permanent-way engineers shall also be provided
  with PDAs for recording inspection inputs.

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Maintenance strategy..

• Human dependence in the form of push trolley
  inspection, foot-plating, patrolling, etc. for
  detection of flaws and deficiencies in track
  parameters will be eliminated. It is envisaged
  that by 2020, the health monitoring of assets
  should be completely mechanized
• Vehicle mounted USFD would be stabilized by 2020
  to achieve a sharp reduction in the number of
  rail fractures and increased reliability of assets

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Management of Bridges

• Condition of bridges shall be monitored through a
  Bridge Management System.
• All new bridges will be on ballasted deck
  suitable for long-welded rails (LWR) and machine
  maintenance.
• Deflection settlement monitoring sensors will be
  fixed on all important bridges to directly
  transmit data to computers.
• New bridges and bridges on dedicated freight
  corridors and high speed lines will have approach
  slabs. Retrofitting of bridges (particularly
  arch- bridges) would be taken up.

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The infrastructure management in future needs to
focus on

• Proper asset management system
• Low cost in competitive edge
• Essentially need based.
• Optimize to suite different routes- suburban,
  siding
• Innovation and new technology

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Asset Management
Today
Preventive planned maintenance
Corrective maintenance
Condition monitoring
Tomorrow
Total maintenance and renewal costs
Vision 2020 Focus on find and fix to
measure and predict.
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Asset management system will
Store , analyse and provide data (in real time)
of inspections, condition ratings, historical
data and reports, rules and thresholds for
performance, Completion Drawings and other
data/reports , comparison with similar type of
asset components
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CRIS is developing various Asset Management
Systems

• SLAM - Software for Locomotive Asset Management
• Crew Management System (CMS)
• Material Management Information System (MMIS)
• Workshop Information System (WISE) 
• Locomotive Management System for Diesel
  locomotives
• Freight Maintenance Management System for wagons
• Coaching Maintenance Management System (CMM),
• Track Management System (TMS)

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The challenge..
Collecting the vast , continuous and varied data
of inspections, measurements, TRC, USFD,GPR,
various NDT, instrumentation, drawings and
records, history, repair and maintenance ,
tamping, wayside detectors, drawings, GMT, and
more . Processing and interpreting this data
for development of prioritized maintenance and
renewal plan in real time.
Human dependence for data collection and
analysing to be kept minimum.
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TMS in present form covers various modules

• SEJ and LWR
• Points and crossings
• Track Structure
• Track Recording Car (TRC)
• USFD, Fracture and Weld
• Job card and work compliance
• Curve
• Bridge
• Level Crossing (LC)
• Oscillation Monitoring System (OMS)
• Track Maintenance Planning
• Machine Deployment
• Track Diagram
• Workshop
• Material Management

In future we should aim to use GIS to map the
data.
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New Technology/ Innovations/new focus areas
Road ahead
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Rail flaw detection

• Ultrasonic detection- DRTs
• Eddy current detection - uses electro-magnetic
  waves. Suitable for surface cracks
• Laser-based ultrasonic inspection technique is
  being developed (Transport Technology Center ,
  Inc) being non-contact type faster detection at
  higher speeds and complete inspection of entire
  rail section (head , foot and web ) is possible.

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NDT of bridges
RDSO has issued guidelines for NDT in August 2009
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Bridge NDT

• Ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) test
• Permeability test
• CORING AND VISUAL INSPECTION
• HALF CELL for reinf corrosion by creating
  electromagnetic cell between rebar and concrete
• Resistivity test for corrosion
• ULTRASOUND by transmitting acoustic waves
• IMPACT ECHO sending impact and measuring
  rebound
• RADIOGRAPHY X Ray or Gamma ray image
• INFRARED THERMOGRAPHY - measuring subtle
  temperature differences on the surface identify
  delamination or separations
• GROUND PENETRATING RADAR (GPR) electromagnetic
  waves instead of sound waves. Does not need
  contact

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Dream of future..

• Embedded sensors - fiber optical (FOS)
• Deformation sensors- giving condition data and
  transmitting through wifi networks.
• Sensor at bearing to give actual load.
• Sensor to give condition of concrete and masonry,
  condition of foundation and scour.
• Instrument to give actual load/stress on LWR
• Measurement of wheel impact (WILD)

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Track machine management
With 500 machines and complete mechanization in
future we may need a full fledged maintenance
system like electric locos having depots to carry
out various schedule maintenance, training
centers and organization.
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Increased attention to life-cycle analysis of
asset
Asset Management System
Use of GIS technology
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Research and Development
There may be many more areas where we need to
focus. We need to enhance our efforts on Research
and Development
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Conclusion
Creation and adoption of an efficient asset
management system will enable us to fulfill the
dream of our organization to offer reliable, safe
and competitive transport mode. An integrated
system for land, track, bridge and track machine
can be the need of future.
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Thanks