PRT300 Portable Rail Tribometer
A new friction inspection tool for more informed, data-driven decisions on friction management.
Tribometer design principle
Wheel/rail friction is difficult to measure directly. A tribometer creates a model wheel/rail system and measures the friction of this system.
The accuracy of the measurement is determined by how close the model system is to the real system of interest, how well the model system can be controlled and how accurately the force measurement can be taken.
With results validated against full scale test facilities, the Rivelin Rail PRT300 is designed to produce the most accurate measurement possible in a lightweight device.
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it
Trial and error or visual inspections don’t cut it elsewhere in the industry, yet they are used far too often in friction management. Our portable tribometer provides immediate and comprehensible data for more informed decision making:
Identify friction irregularities, for example low adhesion “hotspots”
Inspect rail after safety incidents
Determine and compare performance criteria of friction management products such as rail cleaning, traction enhancers and lubricants
Optimise friction management strategies
Magnetically clamped to rail
Representative and controlled contact conditions, for class leading accuracy and repeatability
Representative and controlled contact conditions, for class leading accuracy and repeatability
Results in less than 60 seconds
Results
Displayed on screen and saved to micro-SD card
Friction Coefficient
Environmental conditions; Rail temperature, air temperature, relative humidity
GPS co-ordinates
How does it work?
The Rivelin Rail PRT300 portable tribometer magnetically clamps to the top of the rail to provide point measurements. A freely rotating measurement ball is used, creep is generated by skewing the axis of rotation of the ball relative to the direction of motion at a set angle. This generates lateral creep in the contact, the tangent of the angle gives the effective linear creep.
Result validation and comparison
The compact design means that our tribometer can be used in the lab as well as the field. Results are validated against The University of Sheffield’s full scale wheel and rail test facility under dry, wet and lubricated conditions with excellent comparability between results.
Comparison between lab results (under controlled conditions) and field results (under representative usage) has previously been difficult. Our tribometer provides a “common denominator”, when used in the lab and field.
Back-to-back testing, also useful for lab to field scaling
Comparability between tribometer and full scale test facility, over 500 measurements with a range of rail conditions