Rail
Rail Signalling and Trackside Measurement
Ansys dominates the local market in Trackside Measurement, which is health/condition monitoring systems and automatic vehicle identification systems.
Ansys leads the way in Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) systems for the South African rail industry.
Ansys designed and implemented South Africa’s first major AVI system for Spoornet and is involved on an ongoing basis in refining the logistic support applications.
Locomotives and Wagons are fitted with passive RF tags (much like standard access cards, just much larger). Each tag is programmed with the unique ID number of the specific vehicle.
Vehicle identification readers are installed countrywide and as the train passes these sites, the information contained in the tag is read by the readers. When the train has passed the site, the full train consist data is sent via GPRS to a central database from where viewer programs can access the data. This information provides optimisation of vehicle assignments as well as real time tracking of rolling stock.
The Hot Bearing Detection system is installed to measure bearing temperatures of rail vehicles moving up to 240km/h.
Temperatures are measured with 2% accuracy, and as soon as the temperatures are outside the defined range, alarms are triggered and the train is stopped to prevent de-railings.
The HBD system can be used on electrified as well as non-electrified rails.
Wheel profile monitoring system
The wheel profile monitoring system consists of high speed cameras and lasers to measure the dimensions of the wheels of vehicles. The measured data is then compared with the required dimensions of the wheel.
Alarm levels are defined for each, which is used for maintenance information and scheduling.
Ansys represents Westinghouse Rail Systems, Australia, to offer rail signalling systems adapted for the developing world into the South African economy. Through its division Emerging Signals, Ansys offers mine signalling systems, a comprehensive rail installation capability and General Electric rail products.