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High-performance, Biodegradable Lubrication of
German / European Railway Systems - Today
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High-performance, Biodegradable Lubrication of
German / European Railway Systems - Today
1 Introduction 2 Problems - Wheel/Rail
contact - Tribo-System Switch/Point 3 Requiremen
ts 4 Solutions - Lubricant formulation
5 Application - Switch lubrication - Wheel
flange lubrication 6 Test Methods 7 Results 8 F
uture Aspects 9 Summary
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Lubricant consumption
Worlds lubricant consumption 37.000.000
tons Consumption in Germany 1.200.000 tons
Total loss lubricants 40.000 tons Railway
Systems 5.000 tons

• Total loss lubricants
• Concrete release agents
• Two-stroke engine oils
• Chain saw oils
• Chain- and Wire rope lubricants
• ...
• Switch lubricants
• Wheel flange lubricants
• Rail lubricants

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Problem Wheel/Rail contact

• Wheel/Rail contact is essential, because
• traction forces
• braking forces
• electric signals
• are transferred in this contact.
• No lubrication in the Traction Area A

• Lateral forces caused by
• centrifugal effects in curves
• dynamic interaction between vehicle and track
• Vibrations/Shock loads due to gauge variations
• lead to further contact zones B.
• Zone B needs effective lubrication to reduce
  friction and wear.

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Problem Wheel/Rail contact
Influence of Lubrication on Wheel flange wear
Wear area
Loss of Material when reprofiling
Lubricated
Not Lubricated
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Problem Switches
Switches belong to the most important elements of
the rail track, because failures influence
directly the network operation, safety and
availability of the network.
Switches of the common slide chair design are
extremely demanding in the tribological point of
view, because the lubricant has to fulfil strong
and partly opposite requirements.
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Requirements

• Generally
• Environmentally harmless
• Low water pollution
• High biodegradability
• No toxic components
• Should be solvent-free
• etc.
• These requirements are not homogeneously
  regulated. Regarding biodegradability, the test
  method according to CEC L-33-A-93 standard is
  commonly used. Additionally different
  OECD-guidelines are used.

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Requirements

• Wheel flange lubrication
• primary
• Reduction of friction between wheel and rail
  flange to reduce the risk of derailment and to
  minimise rolling noises generated in these
  contact zones.
• Reduction of wear of wheel and rail to minimise
  maintenance work and life cycle costs and to
  increase the availability of the rolling stock.
• secondary
• High adhesion (gets more and more important for
  high speed trains)
• Lubricity and sprayability should be independent
  from temperature
• Independence from the lubricating system used
• Good resistance against ageing
• Long storage time

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Requirements

• Switch lubrication
• primary
• Reduction of friction to achieve low adjusting
  forces and safe operation
• Excellent corrosion protection, which is also
  effective under extreme weather conditions and in
  very thin lubricant layers
• secondary
• Good applicability
• High creeping power for lubrication of
  inaccessible areas
• Lubricity should be independent from temperature
• Excellent EP- and damping properties (Shock loads
  during overrunning)

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Solution

• Basics of lubricant formulation
• In these applications normally soft free-flowing
  greases are used, which can contain special solid
  lubricants.
• It is important, that all single components are
  checked regarding their environmental potential,
  even though the base oil is by far the biggest
  portion of the lubricant.
• Base oils
• Regarding biodegradability we can choose
• from the following fluids
• Native esters
• Synthetic esters
• Low-viscous Polyglycols
• Low-viscous synthetic hydrocarbons

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Solution

• Beside the biodegradability the following
  properties have to be considered with the base
  oils
• Lubricity
• Flow behaviour at low temperatures
• Thermal resistance
• Solubility / Miscibility of additives
• Compatibility with materials
• Following the thickeners, which can be used in
  biodegradable lubricants
• Lithium soap
• Calcium soap
• Li-/Ca-Mix soap
• Inorganic thickeners, e.g. Bentonite

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Solution
Additives and Solid lubricants EP additives
play an important role, because wheel flange
lubrication, as well as switch lubrication is
working under boundary or extreme mixed friction
conditions. Selection of additives must be done
also with regard to the strong requirements of
environmental aspects and must fulfil all the
tribological demands as well. Long-term
experience in practical applications has shown,
that special solid lubricants can be extremely
helpful in these applications. Mostly special
graphite types as well as combinations of the
so-called white solid lubricants are used.
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Solution
Synergetic combination of the mentioned
components to ready formulations
AC Anti-corrosion, AW Anti-wear, AO
Anti-oxydant, EP Extreme Pressure FSS solid
lubricants
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Application

• Generally
• to make sure that you have the right quantity of
  lubricant right in time at the right place
• Switch lubrication
• normally manually,
• e.g. with brush
• sometimes with portable
• lubricators

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Application

• Wheel flange lubrication
• with automatic lubricators, which spray extremely
  small quantities of lubricant onto the wheel
  flanges
• Regarding the controlling system, lubricators are
  divided into
• path controlled
• time controlled
• curve controlled systems.

• normally only the first wheel set is lubricated,
  all the following axles are lubricated indirectly

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Application
Wheel flange lubrication, example
Type Vogel SP 9
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Application
Wheel flange lubrication, example
Type DeLimon RE
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Application
Wheel flange lubrication, example
Type BEKA Fluilub
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Application
Wheel flange lubrication, calculation
example Width of the spray jet on the wheel
flange 20 mm Wheel diameter 900
mm Lubricant quantity per spray cycle 30
mg Thickness of lube film on the first wheel
set ca. 0,5 µm
Spray pattern from test rig trial
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Application
Wheel flange lubrication, calculation
example Lubricant quantity per cycle 30
mg Travelling distance per cycle 500 m Total
distance 1000 km Lubricant consumption at
each side 60 g
Spray pattern from test rig trial
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Test methods

• Friction value
• Tannert
• Timken
• Almen-Wieland

• Corrosion protection
• Erichsen
• Water resistance
• Emcor

• System test
• DeLimon RE
• DeLimon Railjet
• Vogel SP 8
• Vogel SP 9
• Saxonia SSL-3
• Rebs
• Woerner
• Beka Fluilub
• SRS Clicomatic
• Portec

• Wear
• FBT welding load
• FBT wear
• Timken

• Environment
• CEC L-33-A93
• OECD 301 A-E
• RAL-UZ 64
• etc.

• Adhesion power
• Tannert
• Timken-Retention
• Fling-off test

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Results Field test
Biodegradable, High-Performance Lubricant
Conventional Lubricant
Used E-Lok BR 111,DTotal test distance 1,9
Mill. km remark sh and a are not influenced by
the lubricant
Wear in mm / 100.000 km
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Results Field test
1991 Changing over from a conventional, mineral
oil based grease to a high performance,
biodegradable lubricant.
Causes for Wheel Flange Wear on Locomotive
Wheels (source Austrian Railway)
Flange wear
Flange/surface wear
Flat surfaces
Surface wear
Cracks
Others
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Results Field test
Conventional Biodegradable
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Future Aspects

• Searching for more suitable raw materials
• New trends in environmental legislation
• New materials for wheels and rails
• New designs of carriages and bogies
• Higher wheel loads
• Higher velocities
• Further optimisation of the status quo

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Summary

• Biodegradable lubricants for wheel flange and
  switch lubrication
• in German / European Railway Systems
• have overrun their conventional ancestors and
  completely removed in many applications
• perform much better and at the same time help our
  environment by
• Reduction of driving power (up to 15)
• Reduction of wear, noise and friction
• Increase of the maintenance intervals
• Reduction of maintenance works
• Reduction of lubricant consumption
• Reduction of the risk of derailment
• Increase of Reliability, Availability,
  Maintainability, Safety (RAMS)
• Decrease of Life Cycle Costs (LCC)
• ...

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Thank you very much for your kind attention.
www.fuchs-lubritech.de