JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #36 - October 2007 - 34

FEATURE “Transportation” Passenger coaches: Filament-wound composite undercarriage water tank As part of a unique project, Kineco successfully developed a filament-wound composite undercarriage water tank for railway passenger coaches. This composite application is quite innovative as very few train undercarriage components have been developed worldwide due to the very demanding design and performance criteria required. CADWIND filament winding software from Material SA, Belgium. This is the first and largest locally manufactured filament winding machine in India designed and fabricated by CNC Technics, Hyderabad, in consultation with IIT-Bombay and Kineco technology experts. RAVI SHRIVASTAVA, GENERAL MANAGER, MARKETING AND PROJECTS, KINECO Design objective and challenges T he development project was taken up in association with the Advanced Composites Programme of TIFAC (Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India) and the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, with active participation from Indian Railway including their R&D wing Research, Designs & Standards Organization (RDSO). Undercarriage water tanks are mainly used for water storage in air-conditioned passenger coaches. Water is pumped from the tank into the train coach. The AC unit in such coaches is roofmounted and hence there is no space available for overhead water tanks. Each air-conditioned passenger coach is equipped with two undercarriage water tank modules, each module having two tanks with a holding capacity of 450 litres each. Setting up the filament winding facility As part of the development project, a state-of-the-art four-axis CNC filament winding facility (Figure 1) was created to wind components up to 4 metres in diameter and 10 metres in length. To make it more versatile, the filament winding facility was designed with one additional X-axis. While the first spindle can wind diameters up to 1.5 meters at high rotational speeds, the second spindle can wind diameters up to 4 meters at relatively slower speeds. The second spindle can hold a component and mandrel weight up to 6 tonnes. This facility is equipped with sophisticated computerized controls supported by the Fig. 2: Composite undercarriage water tank mounted on coach underframe Fig. 1: Four-axis CNC filament winding facility The filament-wound composite undercarriage water tank module (Figure 2) was developed for Indian Railway’s airconditioned passenger coaches with the following main objectives in mind: - The water contained in the undercarriage tanks should not be contaminated by the container material; - The undercarriage tank should withstand the impact of normal ballast (stone) hits while running on the tracks; - The tare weight of coaches should be reduced (for similar capacity tanks); - The tank material should not corrode in the course of its service; - The tank design should allow for easy cleaning and maintenance; JEC Composites Magazine / No36 October - November 2007

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #36 - October 2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #36 - October 2007