Abstract
Spherical roller bearings in railway car wheels are critical components whose failure may have catastrophic consequences. The present study aims to analyse the mechanical stability of greases and temperature of bearings as indicators for condition-based bearing maintenance. The performed case study includes nine fully-formulated commercial greases examined in the wheel bearings of five ore cars operated in northern Scandinavia. The studied ore cars travelled a distance of about 300 000 km during a period of three years. Small samples of the greases were taken on eight occasions to test their mechanical stability. In addition, the temperatures of the bearings were continuously recorded. After the test period, the wear, electrical damage, and corrosion of the bearings were examined. One of the findings is that the shear stress of the grease at a certain shear velocity (the certain yieldstress (CEY) value) is a good maintenance indicator and is highly dependent on the grease type. The bearing’s wear, electrical damage and corrosion also depend on the grease type. However, no oxidation of the greases was identified. The paper also outlines a systematic methodology to determine an overall maintenance indicator for railway roller bearings which is based on the field measurements.
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Jan Lundberg has been a professor of Machine Elements at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden since 2000. During 1983–2000, his research concerned mainly about engineering design in the field of machine elements in industrial environments. During 2000–2006, his research concerned mainly about industrial design, ergonomic and related problems as cultural aspects of design and modern tools for effective industrial design in industrial environments.
Since 2006, his research interests have completely focused on maintenance issues like methods for measuring failure sources, how to do design out maintenance and how to design for easy maintenance, including automation and computing.
Aditya Parida received the Ph.D. degree in operation and maintenance engineering. He is currently an assistant professor with Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. Besides teaching, he is actively involved in supervising the research students and projects.
His research interests include asset and maintenance performance measurement, RCM, computing and eMaintenance.
Peter Söderholm received the Ph.D. degree in the operation and maintenance engineering. Currently, he is an assistant professor with Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, and presently working with Swedish Rail Road Administration, Sweden.
His research interests include emaintenance, reliability and no fault found (NFF), and data computing for the aerospace industry.
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Lundberg, J., Parida, A. & Söderholm, P. Running temperature and mechanical stability of grease as maintenance parameters of railway bearings. Int. J. Autom. Comput. 7, 160–166 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11633-010-0160-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11633-010-0160-1