It is well known in the railway sector that Swicthes and Crossings are the most sensitive elements on the network. Are you aware of the causes of constant breakdowns on Point Machines? Here is an interesting fact about the switch Point Machine after our extensive experience with them:
30% of failures take place in the electrical part of the switch, 70% on the mechanical part, and half of it is related to the control blades or can me monitored through the control gap, therefore, 65% of failures involve the point machine.
How can we reduce the number of failures?
We could try to do over maintenance to avoid breakdowns but this would be expensive and inefficient. A cost-effective solution is to monitor the assets recording electrical, mechanical and environmental data on real-time. At smart motors we have a patented solution that gathers and transfers data to a central server which has information regarding normal function patterns and thresholds, evaluating the performance continuously. The user can visualize information on real-time and access to activity reports based on historical data among others.
In case of the point machine having control bars, 35% of failures failure on 3-bars point machines have to do with control blades or can be monitored through the control gap. That's why we developed the CDX device providing high accuracy identifying track obstructions and misalignment problems in the control blade mechanism due to vibration, stress or temperature changes. It also records video and takes photographs in real-time. In addition, it is remotely calibrated.
To improve maintainers efficiency when performing their daily tasks, DAVANA offers tools to give feedback and send it directly to the ERP’s system. Check here how we closed the Condition Based Maintenance cycle with tools to ease Point Machine revisions.
For more detailed information on point machine solutions download smart motors brochure:
