Tests with French partners

Upon the request of JSC “RZD” especially for the representatives of French National Railway Company (SNCF) TVEMA company undertook the demonstration of functionalities of high-speed diagnostic vehicle «SPRINTER» by JSC “Firma TVEMA”. Demonstration runs were organized at Belorechenskaya station – Khanskya station track section of the North Caucasus Directorate of Infrastructure on rails with artificially manufactured and primarily attested models of defects. The list of defects had been previously agreed with the French side. The aim of demonstration runs, which were attended by the representatives of JSC “RZD” and Eurailscout (the company provides monitoring of the condition of railway infrastructure in Europe), was to detect defects with ultrasonic NDT method in a range of working speeds from 60 to 140 km/h.

This meeting of Russian and French colleagues was the fourth in the recent period. For the first time specialists of SNCF expressed interest in TVEMA’s products at last year’s forum EXPO 1520 in Scherbinka. In March 2016 French delegation visited Russia in order to establish contacts with our industrial research institutes and innovative companies. This visit enabled our French partners to become more familiar with our products. Finally, in September this year at InnoTrans International Trade Fair for Transport Technology held in Berlin, delegations of TVEMA and SNCF substantively discussed perspectives of equipping French high-speed rolling stock with diagnostic equipment by TVEMA.

Foresaid demonstration runs provided an opportunity to check practical implementation of such possibility. During tests under adverse weather conditions of Northern Caucasus (temperatures below freezing point, snow, drifting snow etc.) was confirmed stable operation of the high-speed diagnostic vehicle “SPRINTER” in a wide range of speeds at which monitoring was implemented without compromising reliability of the results. As a result of 5 testing runs at speeds from 60 to 140 km/h detection of defects was 100 %, including monitoring at maximum speed. Besides specialists of JSC “Firma TVEMA” demonstrated operation of software data evaluation module, which allowed to detect defects with ultrasonic method in automated mode.

Our guests double-checked collected data with single-thread manual defects detectors, used in French railways. Test results of manual diagnostic tools completely coincided with test results of high-speed diagnostic vehicle «SPRINTER». 

French partners noted the high quality of operation of diagnostic vehicle “SPRINTER”, outstanding reliability of monitoring results at high speeds. Representatives of SNCF expressed interest in purchase of such equipment and in further development of cooperation with JSC “RZD” and JSC “Firma TVEMA” in the field of non-destructive testing of rails. For its part, TVEMA hopes, that this collaborative work will contribute to greater cooperation between Russia and France in ensuring of railway traffic safety in both countries.