DEKRA Rail brochure

Remaining useful life

Customized maintenance for a longer life
If you can understand the degradation process of an asset, you‘ll have a good idea of how long it will meet its minimum
requirements. And you‘ll also know when the next maintenance service is required. By understanding the current condition,it‘s possible to determine the remaining useful life of your asset and perhaps even extend it. Remaining useful life assessment
is DEKRA Rail‘s area of expertise. Today, it is a crucial element of asset management.

When your objective is for your assets to deliver maximum
performance at minimum risk and at minimum cost, it‘s essential
for you to gain insight into the degradation behavior of these assets.
DEKRA Rail is able to provide such insight. We establish thecurrent condition of your assets and compare this with the „asnew“ condition, an earlier measurement, the standards or an expert
judgment. We identify the risks, indicate when maintenance isrequired for exactly what parts, and whether it involves all of thesecomponents or just a selection.

Unknown risk of failure

Deferring maintenance responsibly

The expertise of DEKRA RailIt‘s often possible to extend the useful life and maintenanceintervals of your assets by carrying out the right maintenance on
the right components at the right times. The results of investigations and calculations made by DEKRA Rail will help you makeresponsible choices, not only regarding the end of the operational
life cycle, but also with respect to interim reconditioning.
In doing so, at all times we closely monitor everything so that
performance does not become substandard.

DEKRA Rail holds an enormous amount of data on every possible
kind of rail asset, backed by expertise built up over a period of
90 years. We know how assets work, how they age and degrade,
why and how they fail and what the consequences of this are.
DEKRA Rail looks at the whole picture: from certification todamage investigation, from modeling to deferral of maintenanceand the extension of the operational life cycle. We have accessto all imaginable facilities for measuring and testing your assets,
not only in DEKRA Rail‘s own laboratories, but also as part ofDEKRA‘s worldwide operations.

Technical and economic considerations
DEKRA Rail assesses and calculates the technical and safety
risks. These are offset against the expectations you have for theperformance of the asset and against the costs: do you invest
the absolute minimum in maintenance because the asset needs
replacing, or is the investment the right one for extending theasset‘s life cycle?

Sometimes a test or analysis carried out by DEKRA Rail will
flag up a new, unknown cause of failure with concomitant risks.
In this case we will establish whether the problem is systemic,
how often it occurs, what the consequences might be and whatsensible maintenance entails. To this end we always answer threequestions: Can what happens be predicted? Can it be measured?
How often does it need to be measured?

Practical examples› Damage to a pantograph. Is the damage caused by improper use?
Was there a design fault or a mistake in the specifications? Wereusage factors different from those expected? A problem analysis(for example, a KT analysis or Root Cause Analysis) carried outby DEKRA Rail can help answer these questions.

› Excessive wear on the rail in a curve. DEKRA Rail calculates
the speed of degradation on the basis of modeling (e.g. using
a Multi-Body or FEM analysis). In addition, DEKRA Rail hastechniques to monitor degradation. The predictability of thesubsequent failures is central in our degradation investigations:
Can it be measured? And how (often) should it be measured?

Other services provided by DEKRA Rail
> Railway Certification and Assessment Services> ERTMS services> Wheel-Rail optimization> Product Testing> NDT services> Rotating equipment condition monitoringContact
DEKRA Rail experts can be contacted via:
Telephone+31 30 3005 100

Postal address

PO Box 8125
3503 RC Utrecht
The Netherlands

Business address Concordiastraat 67
Utrecht
The Netherlands
WebE-mailwww.dekra-rail.com
info.rail@dekra.com