DEKRA Rail brochure

Damage investigation

Learning from defects, preventing defects
Damage investigation for improving
safety and optimizing maintenanceHow do the results of damage
inspection actually help?

A broken wheel or rail, the breakdown of a circuit-breaker, a damaged pantograph, a points failure:
If unforeseen damage to a structure occurs or one of your systems
unexpectedly fails, usually immediate measures are taken to ensure
safety and availability. What‘s more, though, you‘ll want the cause
investigated so that you can preclude damage and failures happening in the future.

First and foremost, damage inspection aims to establish the exact
cause of the component‘s failure. The results of damage inspection
can be applied to help prevent the same damage recurring in thefuture. For example, the following measures might be
implemented:

DEKRA Rail helps you identify the causeof the damage>> changes in usage or the maintenance regime, and>> implementation of regular inspection, for example, using NDT.

Often, major damage provides reason enough for asset managers
like yourself to call in external help. If your own experts andtechnicians don‘t have the right specialist know-how, or are
unable to examine the cause objectively enough, specialists at
DEKRA can be called in to tell you exactly what investigation isnecessary to provide an effective diagnosis of the cause and thefull facts of the case. Together we will then examine the damage
suffered and the fail mechanism. It‘s usually wise to have allcomponents systematically analyzed.
To do this, DEKRA makes use of several unique and flexible test
facilities and can fall back on an in-depth knowledge of railsystems and their applications. Furthermore, DEKRA
investigators act independently and impartially.
Using their collective know-how and insights, the best possible
measures can be taken to bring about improvements inoperational lifetime, reliability and safety.

>> changes in the construction or use of other materials,>> optimization of the production process,>> introduction of component or system testing prior tooperationalization,

Improving operational lifetime,
reliability and safety throughdamage investigation

DEKRA Rail testing facilities
DEKRA Rail has its own extensive materials and chemicallaboratory and can also make use of the other well-equippedlaboratories for mechanical, physical and chemical investigation
managed by other DEKRA business units or partners.
This means that material properties can be identified, components
analyzed statically or dynamically, and accelerated aging
investigated.
Here are just a few of the test facilities:>> Mechanical testing: tensile and pressure strength testers, fatigue
test benches, impact testers.

>> Metallurgical instruments: various hardness testers (Vickers, Bri-nell, Rockwell and Equotip), optical microscope and electron microscope.
>> Chemical analyses: chemical composition, influence of chemicals
on the construction.

Contact:DEKRA Rail
Postal address

PO Box 8125
3503 RC Utrecht
The Netherlands

Business address Concordiastraat 673551 EM Utrecht
The Netherlands
TelephoneWebE-mail+31 30 3005 100
www.dekra-rail.com
rail.nl@dekra.com