Abstract :
A locomotive or engine is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The locomotives are manufactured, inspected by the Railway Company to ensure safe operation. All the components must be designed and maintained to perform their intended function, in order to ensure the safety of the passengers. There are some systems which need inspection. One such system is the BRAKE SYSTEM. The speed of the locomotive is dependent on the effectiveness of the Braking System used. With the effectiveness of the Braking system, in must be ensured that, the safety of the passengers is also provided, that is the mechanical vibrations and jerks are to be minimized. One of the components in the Brake system more subjected to failure is the BRAKE HANGER. In this paper, the Failure of the Brake hanger is analyzed in Static and Dynamic stress conditions. The approach adopted is based on the previous failure data of various components that are observed in various loco sheds of Indian Railways. After evaluating the reliability of different systems, the system with the least reliability is considered for the failure analysis. One such system having least reliability is the BRAKING SYSTEM. With the past history, the low reliability for the braking system is due to the frequent failure of the BRAKE HANGER, under STATIC and DYNAMIC loading. By performing the Structural Analysis on that component, various reasons for the failure are found out. If the component is prone to cyclic loads then the Dynamic analysis is performed and the frequencies are calculated. Finally, necessary modifications in the design of the Brake Hanger are made. From the Structural analysis, the parts of the component where the stress distribution is more are obtained. Then the necessary changes are made in the component design, to reduce the stress concentration. For the cyclic loads, the Dynamic analysis is performed and from the results, the time period is calculated within which the component functions with a high reliability. Thus the overall safety of the component is ensured.
