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Ultrasonic inspection solution for railway crossing points

Project description

New solution to enhance railway safety

The structural integrity of rail crossings, known as ‘frogs,’ poses a significant challenge in the railway industry. These vital mechanical installations enable trains to transition smoothly from one track to another. However, the continuous impact collisions from rolling stock take a toll on the frogs, leading to fatigue cracking that compromises their safety. With this in mind, the EU-funded SAFTInspect project has emerged as a ground-breaking solution. Using a synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT), SAFTInspect will introduce a revolutionary approach to fully inspecting railway crossings, identifying flaws in critical components. By improving railway safety and preventing train derailments, this innovative device will also benefit rail operators, maintenance service providers, and manufacturers.

Objective

The heart of the rail crossings points also known as “frogs”, are a mechanical installation that enable a train to switch from one track to another.Frogs are subjected to repetitive impact collisions from the rolling stock.Such actions cause fatigue cracking which compromise the structural integrity of these safety critical components.For this reason, the EU infrastructure employs manganese steel at safety critical locations such as crossing.
Railway sector involves companies that need to inspect railway crossing accurately and in time.SAFTInspect is the only solution that will warranty the total inspection of the “frog” and it will also monitor the evolution through time with a Data base (Big Data).
SAFTInspect is based on a Synthetic Aperture Focussing Technique (SAFT) that facilitates for the first time full volume inspection of railway crossings devices in order to detect flaws on critical parts reinforcing the railway safety regions.SAFTInspect system will improve levels of safety for the railway industry preventing train derailments.Rail operators, underground operators, rail maintenance service providers and manufacturers, will benefit from our SAFTInspect innovative device that will be used both in pre-service and in-service analysis:
Pre-service: SAFT Inspect will allow the manufacturer to control every asset produced and to offer a better service to its customers (100% of quality). No special infrastructure is required, no special skills from the user.
In-service:Full volumetric inspection is more effective (90%). We will reduce 85% the total time per inspection and 94% on savings from labour costs.
Cracks that occur during service will be detected at an early stage in their growth cycle.Therefore we will eliminate the unnecessary cost of replacing frogs that are not damaged (savings around €1.89M per year).
From a global perspective, avoiding unscheduled maintenance, rail operators will save up to €87.5M in penalties in Europe due to train derailments.

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-SMEInst-2016-2017

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Coordinator

AIRTREN, S.L.
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 631 181,00
Address
CALLE JOSE LOMBANA IGLESIAS 14
28023 MADRID
Spain

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Comunidad de Madrid Comunidad de Madrid Madrid
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 901 687,50

Participants (1)

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