Case Study
"Reverse engineering in practice - suspension for vintage railway carriage
Design and development usually involves projects where we produce drawings, specifications and prototypes of new parts, but sometimes the reverse also occurs - 'reverse engineering'.
An example of this is an assignment from a rail transport operator. This customer needed dampers for an older tram model.
The problem was that the tram stopped being produced in the 1950s and there were no existing production tools or spare parts available.
The task for Ulinco was to recreate dampers that corresponded to the original dampers.
Challenge
The solution the customer needed required reverse engineering, which meant recreating the dampers with exactly the same characteristics as the original dampers.
One of the challenges was a very limited set of drawings. After some time, however, Ulinco managed to find an older drawing in the city archives.
Many dimensions and radii were missing from this drawing, but there were nevertheless load curves indicated which showed the load the dampers had to withstand during damping. The design of the damper consisted of four different parts fitted together.
Our proposal
Based on the data from the city archive and analysis and measurement of 60-70 year old dismantled dampers, new drawings were produced.
The re-creation of the dampers required four different pressing tools for the metal parts, and a vulcanisation tool for each component. In total, eight tools were constructed.
In addition, as the requirements for suspension at different loads were specified in the drawing, Ulinco developed a rubber compound that could cope with the specified load curves.
Outcome
Ulinco delivered the first 16 dampers as a partial delivery so that our customer could complete a first tram. The full-load suspension was within 1 mm of the nominal dimension on the drawing's load curve.
The tolerance was +/- 5 mm. After the first tram returned to service, Ulinco has provided a very satisfied train operator with a complete serial delivery.
Do you have suspension problems? Get in touch with us!
Phone number
031-748 55 40E-mail address
order@ulinco.seProduct range
Example of suspension
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