TY - JOUR A1 - Pfaff, Raphael T1 - Braking distance prediction for vehicle consist in low-speed on-sight operation: a Monte Carlo approach JF - Railway Engineering Science N2 - The first and last mile of a railway journey, in both freight and transit applications, constitutes a high effort and is either non-productive (e.g. in the case of depot operations) or highly inefficient (e.g. in industrial railways). These parts are typically managed on-sight, i.e. with no signalling and train protection systems ensuring the freedom of movement. This is possible due to the rather short braking distances of individual vehicles and shunting consists. The present article analyses the braking behaviour of such shunting units. For this purpose, a dedicated model is developed. It is calibrated on published results of brake tests and validated against a high-definition model for low-speed applications. Based on this model, multiple simulations are executed to obtain a Monte Carlo simulation of the resulting braking distances. Based on the distribution properties and established safety levels, the risk of exceeding certain braking distances is evaluated and maximum braking distances are derived. Together with certain parameters of the system, these can serve in the design and safety assessment of driver assistance systems and automation of these processes. KW - Freight rail KW - Shunting KW - Braking curves KW - Brake set-up KW - Driver assistance system Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40534-023-00303-7 SN - 2662-4753 (eISSN) SN - 2662-4745 (Print) VL - 31 IS - 2 SP - 135 EP - 144 PB - SpringerOpen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pfaff, Raphael A1 - Enning, Manfred A1 - Sutter, Stefan T1 - A risk‑based approach to automatic brake tests for rail freight service: incident analysis and realisation concept JF - SN Applied Sciences N2 - This study reviews the practice of brake tests in freight railways, which is time consuming and not suitable to detect certain failure types. Public incident reports are analysed to derive a reasonable brake test hardware and communication architecture, which aims to provide automatic brake tests at lower cost than current solutions. The proposed solutions relies exclusively on brake pipe and brake cylinder pressure sensors, a brake release position switch as well as radio communication via standard protocols. The approach is embedded in the Wagon 4.0 concept, which is a holistic approach to a smart freight wagon. The reduction of manual processes yields a strong incentive due to high savings in manual labour and increased productivity. KW - Freight rail KW - Brake test KW - Incident analysis KW - Train composition KW - Brake set-up Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42452-022-05007-x SN - 2523-3971 N1 - Corresponding author: Raphael Pfaff VL - 4 IS - 4 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Franzen, Julian A1 - Stecken, Jannis A1 - Pfaff, Raphael A1 - Kuhlenkötter, Bernd T1 - Using the Digital Shadow for a Prescriptive Optimization of Maintenance and Operation : The Locomotive in the Context of the Cyber-Physical System T2 - Advances in Production, Logistics and Traffic N2 - In competition with other modes of transport, rail freight transport is looking for solutions to become more attractive. Short-term success can be achieved through the data-driven optimization of operations and maintenance as well as the application of novel strategies such as prescriptive maintenance. After introducing the concept of prescriptive maintenance, this paper aims to prove that vehicle-focused applications of this approach indeed have the potential to increase attractiveness. However, even greater advantages can be activated if data from the horizontal network of the vehicle is available. Drawing on the state of the art in research and technology in the field of cyber-physical systems (CPS) as well as digital twins and shadows, our work serves to design a system of systems for the horizontal interconnection of a rail vehicle and to conceptualize a draft for a digital twin of a locomotive. Y1 - 2019 SN - 978-3-030-13535-5 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13535-5_19 SP - 265 EP - 276 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bücking, Henrik A1 - Pfaff, Raphael A1 - Dirksmeier, Roger T1 - Sensor positioning and thermal model for condition monitoring of pressure gas reservoirs in vehicles T2 - Proceedings of the Fourth European Conference of the Prognostics and Health Management Society, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2018 Y1 - 2018 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Gao, H. A1 - Babilon, Katharina A1 - Pfaff, Raphael A1 - Gan, F. A1 - Reich, A. T1 - Model of wheel-rail contact for sanding and adhesion enhancement T2 - Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Contact Mechanics and Wear of Rail/wheel Systems, CM 2018 Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-946186963-0 SP - 314 EP - 321 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Franzen, Julius A1 - Pinders, Erik A1 - Pfaff, Raphael A1 - Enning, Manfred T1 - RailCrowd’s virtual fleets: Make most of your asset data JF - Deine Bahn N2 - For smaller railway operators or those with a diverse fleet, it can be difficult to collect sufficient data to improve maintenance programs. At the same time, new rules such as entity in charge of maintenance – ECM – regulations impose an additional workload by requiring a dedicated maintenance management system and specific reports. The RailCrowd platform sets out to facilitate compliance with ECM and similar regulations while at the same time pooling anonymised fleet data across operators to form virtual fleets, providing greater data insights. Y1 - 2018 SN - 0948-7263 IS - 9 SP - 11 EP - 13 PB - Bahn-Fachverlag CY - Berlin ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Pfaff, Raphael A1 - Melcher, Karin A1 - Franzen, Julian T1 - Rare event simulation to optimise maintenance intervals of safety critical redundant subsystems T2 - Proceedings of the European Conference of the PHM Society Y1 - 2018 VL - 4 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 6 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Pfaff, Raphael A1 - Schmidt, B. D. A1 - Enning, Manfred T1 - Towards inclusion of the freight rail system in the industrial internet of things - Wagon 4.0 T2 - Stephenson Conference, London, March 2017 Y1 - 2017 N1 - IMechE Stephenson Conference <2017, London, United Kingdom> SP - 1 EP - 10 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Pfaff, Raphael A1 - Moshiri, Amir A1 - Reich, Alexander A1 - Gäbel, Markus T1 - Modelling of the effect of sanding on the wheel-rail adhesion area T2 - First International Conference on Rail Transportation Y1 - 2017 N1 - 2017 ICRT; International Conference on Rail Transportation <1, 2017, Chengdu, China> SP - 1 EP - 7 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Shahidi, Parham A1 - Pfaff, Raphael A1 - Enning, Manfred T1 - The connected wagon - a concept for the integration of vehicle side sensors and actors with cyber physical representation for condition based maintenance T2 - First International Conference on Rail Transportation Y1 - 2017 N1 - 2017 ICRT; International Conference on Rail Transportation <1, 2017, Chengdu, China> SP - 1 EP - 8 ER -