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Civil-Comp Proceedings
ISSN 1759-3433
CCP: 110
PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON RAILWAY TECHNOLOGY: RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE
Edited by: J. Pombo
Paper 118

Analysis of Failures within Railway Switches and Crossings using Failure Modes and Effects Analysis Methodology

E. Kassa1 and D. Gebretsadik2

1Department of Civil and Transport Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
2SWETH Consultants, Gothenburg, Sweden

Full Bibliographic Reference for this paper
E. Kassa, D. Gebretsadik, "Analysis of Failures within Railway Switches and Crossings using Failure Modes and Effects Analysis Methodology", in J. Pombo, (Editor), "Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Railway Technology: Research, Development and Maintenance", Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 118, 2016. doi:10.4203/ccp.110.118
Keywords: turnout, failure mode and effect analysis, FMEA, risk priority number RPN, rail damage.

Summary
Data analysis has been conducted to investigate turnout failures. To analyse the data correctly, the data has been split into different categorization based on the failed components and the modes of failure. The analysis was conducted based on an investigation of different defects appearing in turnouts, which enabled identification of the most critical failures. A failure modes and effects analysis procedure has been used to analyse the potential failure modes within a turnout. The study, described in this paper, includes statistical analysis of a set of data collected in one year to determine the failure distribution. Different types of failures are categorised, and the causes and effects are identified. The categorisation is mainly for turnout failures on the rail and sleepers but excluding failures due to faults in the switch operating machine. It is clear that the weather plays a very significant role in the probability of failure. The analysis has also revealed a relationship between seasons and the number and type of failure modes. Indeed, the results of this study will be a good input for turnout inspection and maintenance planning, and for improving of the turnout design. Further, failure risk evaluation based on a wider range of data supports a maintenance development by providing precise criteria for deciding how often routine tasks should be carried out.

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