OPERATIONAL RESEARCH OF WEAR OF RAILWAY BUFFERS HEADS COVERED WITH ALUMINUM BRONZE

Abstract

In recent years in Europe and in Poland is discernible trend to significant increase safety in rail transport. Safety improvement is realizing at many levels and in many aspects (organizational, systematic, technical etc.). Implementation of Safety and Maintenance Management Systems is an example of activities seeking to systematic increasing safety in rail in Europe. Similarly, on the part of technical solution there are discernible activities which are aimed to improve safety level. There are proposing new construction solutions, new control systems or new communication technologies which are designed to increase reliability and safety of this mode of transport. For innovations introduced in vehicles it is used to think about improvement safety almost only in the field of implementing enhancements in construction of running gear systems of vehicle. However, it is worth remembering that not only the bogie, wheelset or wheels are responsible for the proper cooperation of the vehicle with the track and its safe leading. Elements that have not been yet subjected to deeper analyzes are railway buffers whose proper maintenance and cooperation is a guarantee of correct vehicle dynamics, especially when passing through rail curves. This article presents the results of operational research of railway buffers whose heads were covered with an aluminum bronze layer. This solution has helped to increase the durability of their co-operating surfaces and has allowed the resignation of the now-proposed solution, which consists in periodically covering buffers heads with the grease which has a lot of defects.