JPS6119471B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a short-circuit resistance reducing device for a track circuit installed on a railway vehicle, and is particularly suitable for application to a track maintenance vehicle of a light vehicle.

A track circuit that utilizes a short circuit between axles between rails is used as a means of detecting that a train is present within a certain section. In the past, when a track maintenance vehicle moved alone or while towing a lightweight trolley, short circuits between the axles between the rails were insufficient, making it impossible to detect the vehicle and causing the level crossing circuit breakers and traffic lights to not operate. The causes are that the weight of maintenance vehicles is small, the electrical contact resistance between wheels and rails is large, and because there are few connected vehicles, there are fewer short-circuiting axles, and therefore fewer electrical circuits that short-circuit track circuits. In addition, since the traction force is small and the vehicle is light, the traction friction force acting between the drive wheels and the rail is small, which makes it impossible to destroy insulating inclusions such as rust and oil film on the rail surface. It will be done. If the track circuit becomes unable to detect a vehicle due to such causes, and the level crossing circuit breakers and traffic lights become inoperable, there is a risk that a level crossing accident or a rear-end collision will occur.

In order to solve such problems, the present applicant, together with other co-applicants, proposed in Japanese Patent Application No. 159538/1987 that a conductive wheel that rolls on a rail by pressure contact is attached to a railway vehicle, and A short-circuit resistance of a track circuit in which a current is passed between the conductive wheel and the wheel of the vehicle through the rail to electrically destroy the insulating inclusion between the rail and the wheel, thereby shorting the axle of the track circuit. A reduction device is disclosed.

In the short circuit resistance reduction device described above, the conductive wheels are attached to the vehicle (car body, chassis, or bogie portion), so the conductive wheels are always pressed against the top surface of the rail against pitching, rolling, and yawing of the vehicle when the vehicle is running. Therefore, a complicated link mechanism is required between the conductive wheels and the vehicle. This increases the size of the device. As the device becomes larger, there are restrictions on its attachment to the vehicle, and in reality it must be attached to the end beam (front end side or rear end side) of the vehicle.
Therefore, in a vehicle intended for towing, etc., it becomes difficult to attach a coupler to the corresponding end beam, and the functionality of the vehicle is halved.

Furthermore, since the conductive wheels are configured with flanges, a link device that can rotate in a horizontal plane is installed between the conductive wheels and the vehicle in order to make the conductive wheels follow the curves of the rail when the rails pass through curves. must be established. Furthermore, if a conductive wheel without a flange is used, an extremely wide conductive wheel must be used in consideration of the curve of the rail in order to maintain constant contact between the conductive wheel and the rail.
However, such conductive wheels cannot be installed because they are subject to vehicle limitations.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to bring a conductive wheel into stable contact with a rail using an extremely simple structure.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a track maintenance vehicle showing an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the maintenance vehicle 1 of this embodiment has rails 2a, 2b and wheels 3a to 3.
Conductive rollers 4a and 4b are provided to electrically destroy insulating inclusions such as rust and oil film between the conductive rollers 4a and 3d. These conductive rollers 4a, 4b are cylindrical without flanges, and are attached to the axle boxes 5a, 5b of the wheels 3a to 3d, respectively, via support members. Electric power is supplied to the conductive rollers 4a and 4b from current control devices 17a and 17b mounted on the maintenance vehicle 1.

FIG. 2 is a partial side view of the maintenance vehicle showing details of the support structure for the conductive rollers 4a, 4b in FIG.
Figures 3 and 4 are the - and - lines in Figure 2.
FIG. Note that the support structures for the conductive rollers 4a and 4b are symmetrical, so only one side will be explained.

In FIG. 2, as is well known, an axle box 5a that houses the bearings of the wheels 3a is attached to a truck frame 6 of a maintenance vehicle via a shock absorber. In FIG. 2, this shock absorber is comprised of leaf springs 7a, 7b and a coil spring 8. Note that a leaf spring or a coil spring may be used alone, or an air spring or the like may be used. Conductive roller 4a
is supported by a suspension arm 9 attached to the axle box 5a.

As shown in FIG. 4, the suspension arm 9 is rotatably attached to the lower part of the axle box 5a using support members 10a, 10b and a fulcrum pin 11. On the distal end side of the suspension arm 9, there is a third conductive roller 4a.
As shown in the figure, it is rotatably mounted via a support shaft 12 and a bearing 13. The conductive roller 4a includes an inner ring 14 and an outer ring 16 which is electrically insulated by an insulating member 15 such as rubber. In addition, insulating member 1
5 absorbs minute vibrations when the vehicle is running, and the outer ring 1
It also has the function of maintaining good contact between the rail 2a and the rail 2a.

Power is supplied to the conductive roller 4a through a connecting wire 19, a slip ring 20, a brush 21, a metal cover 22,
This is done by the energizing path of the outer ring 16. Further, the current flowing from the conductive roller 4a to the rail 2a passes through the wheel 3a, axle 23, slip ring 24, and brush 25 shown in FIG. 4, and returns to the current control device 17a shown in FIG.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 4, the conductive roller 4
A shock absorber 2 is installed between the suspension arm 9 and support members 26a and 26b attached to the side surface of the axle box 5a in order to press the axle box 5a against the rail 2a with a predetermined pressure.
7 is provided. As mentioned above, the conductive roller 4
a is attached to the axle box 5a via the suspension arm 9, vibration, pitching, rolling, and yawing of the bogie frame 6 or the vehicle body do not affect the conductive roller 4a, and the conductive roller is extremely stable. It rolls stably on the rail 2a. However, the axle box itself vibrates up and down due to differences in rail joints and the like when the vehicle is running. Further, when the vehicle is accelerated or braked, the axle box 5a rotates a small amount in the direction of arrow A in FIG. 2 due to the inertia of the vehicle. These vertical vibrations and minute rotations of the axle box 5a are effectively absorbed by the buffer device 27 and are not transmitted to the conductive roller 4a.

The shock absorber 27 is composed of, for example, a combination of a coil spring and a damper, or a rubber block.
6a, 26b and the suspension arm 9, respectively.

As shown in FIG. 1, for example, 20V-
An alternating current, direct current or pulse current of about 50A is applied to the conductive rollers 4a, 4b and the rails 2a, 2 along the dotted line path.
b, flows through the wheels 3a to 3d, respectively. As a result, the rails 2a, 2b and the wheels 3a~ of the maintenance vehicle 1
3d, the insulating inclusion between them is effectively destroyed by the discharge action of the current flowing between them. Therefore, in the track circuit section of the track, the rail 2a
and 2b are reliably short-circuited via the wheels 3a to 3d and the axle 31 to form a track circuit, and a sufficient signal current is transmitted to the axle 3 as shown by the dashed line in FIG.
1 and flows between the rails.

Regarding the current control devices 17a and 17b shown in FIG. 1, power may be supplied to the left and right conductive rollers 4a and 4b from one current control device.

Next, FIG. 5 is a partial side view similar to FIG. 2, showing another embodiment of the support structure for the conductive rollers 4a, 4b. In the embodiment of FIG. 5, a leaf spring 32 is used as the suspension arm. The leaf spring 32 is attached to the axle box 5
A conductive roller 4a attached to the lower part of the rail 2a and rotatably attached to its tip side is pressed against the upper surface of the rail 2a by the elastic force of a leaf spring. Note that it is desirable to attach vibration absorbing rubbers 33a and 33b to the upper and lower surfaces of the leaf spring 32. Further, instead of the vibration absorbing rubbers 33a and 33b, metal plates may be used to absorb vibrations.

Next, FIG. 6 is a partial side view similar to FIG. 2 showing still another embodiment of the conductive rollers 4a, 4b.
FIG. 7 is a sectional view taken along the line -- in FIG. 6. In this embodiment, the suspension arm 9 is attached to support members 10a and 10b at the lower part of the axle box via a support shaft 35 made of a square material having a flexible member 34 on the outer periphery. By rotating the support shaft 35 and fixing it to the support members 10a and 10b, the flexible member 34 is torsionally deformed, thereby rotationally biasing the suspension arm 9, and the conductive roller 4a is moved to the rail 2a. be held down by Further, the elastic force of the flexible member 34 also absorbs the vertical vibration of the axle box 5a.

Note that, as a configuration similar to that shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, the suspension arm 9 may be configured to be biased to rotate using a helical spring or a torsion bar.

As described above, the present invention is provided by attaching a conductive roller to the axle box of a wheel of a railway vehicle that rolls in pressure contact on a rail via a suspension arm, and passing an electric current between the conductive roller and the wheel via the rail. The insulating inclusion between the rail and the wheel is electrically destroyed to short-circuit the axle of the track circuit. Therefore, even if the vehicle is a relatively light maintenance vehicle or a repair vehicle, vehicle detection due to an axle short circuit in the track circuit can be reliably performed, and the reliability of the operation of level crossing circuit breakers and traffic lights can be improved. .

In addition, since the conductive roller is attached to the axle box via a suspension arm that has a rotational fulcrum and can rotate in a vertical plane, it is subject to the effects of vertical vibration, pitching, rolling, yawing, etc. of the vehicle body (bogie frame, chassis, etc.). Since the conductive roller is not affected by this, the conductive roller rolls extremely stably on the rail. Therefore, there is no need to provide a complicated link device or the like for absorbing the vibrations of the vehicle body, the support mechanism between the conductive roller and the axle box is extremely simple, and maintenance and repair are also easy.

Furthermore, the conductive roller can be arranged very close to the running wheels, so that the deflection of the conductive roller from the rail when the rail passes through curves is very small. Therefore, the conductive roller may be flangeless, thereby eliminating the need for a rotatable link device for causing the conductive roller to follow the curve of the rail, and further simplifying the structure.

Since the short-circuit resistance reducing device can be made small and simple in this way, there are fewer restrictions in terms of installation space on the vehicle, and therefore, there is no restriction on the original functions of the maintenance vehicle.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a track maintenance vehicle showing one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a partial side view showing details of the support structure for the conductive roller shown in FIG. 1, and FIGS. 2, FIGS. 5 and 6 are partial side views similar to FIG. 2 showing other embodiments of the support structure for the conductive roller, and FIG. - line sectional view. In addition, in the symbols used in the drawings, 1...
...Maintenance vehicle, 2a, 2b...Rail, 3a-3d
... Wheels, 4a, 4b ... Conductive rollers, 5a, 5
b...Axle box, 9...Suspension arm, 11...Fully pin, 27...Buffer device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A suspension arm that has a rotational fulcrum in an axle box of a running wheel of a railway vehicle and is rotatable in a vertical plane, a flangeless conductive roller that is attached to the tip of this suspension arm and rolls on a rail, and the above-mentioned suspension arm. and an energizing structure that applies force to press the conductive roller onto the rail and absorb vibration, and a current is passed between the conductive roller and the running wheel via the rail, thereby causing the rail to A short-circuit resistance reducing device for a track circuit, which electrically destroys an insulating inclusion between a wheel and a track circuit to short-circuit the axle of the track circuit in a predetermined section of the track.