01 China's high-speed rail market is vast
Recently, at a news press on "Promoting the High-quality Development of the Transportation Industry of China and Making China a Transportation Giant," Minister of Transport Li Xiaopeng said that the total mileage of China's railway is expected to reach 146,000 kilometers by the end of 2020, including a total mileage of high-speed railway of about 39,000 kilometers, marking another breakthrough since China entered the era of high-speed railway.
At present, the operating mileage of China's high-speed railway is higher than the total mileage of other countries in the world. In addition, China's train ticket prices are the lowest, and its railway construction cost is two thirds of that of other countries. China has made a miracle in high-speed railway construction.
02 Traditional railway cleaning method
The main raw material used to build railway tracks in China is high manganese steel, which is a kind of alloy steel with good abrasion and wear resistance. Because these tracks are exposed to the air all the year round and needs to withstand the wind and rain, rusty tracks have always been a common challenge in track maintenance. In order to ensure the smooth operation of the train, the railway management units need to remove rust from the tracks periodically.
At present, track rust removal mainly depends on grinding, which can be done manually or using large railway grinding machines. Manual grinding is the main method of railway maintenance at present, but this method is disadvantageous with high labor intensity, high operation difficulty and low work efficiency. Using large railway derusting machines, however, requires submitting a transportation plan before doing the cleaning operation, as the related railway lines will be out of service during the cleaning operation, which thus results in high cleaning cost and great disturbance to the environment around the railway lines.
In addition, there are the following problems with traditional grinding rust removal:
1. Intensive grinding ensures the cleanliness of railway track, but it may damage the arc surface of the tack and thus affect the traveling experience of passengers on board.
2. Reducing the grinding intensity can avoid damaging the arc surface, but will result in serious rust residue and high safety risks.
3. Grinding is costly as it requires a large quantity of grinding wheels and consumables. Dust is easily produced during the cleaning process, which causes serious environmental pollution and great harm to the health of maintenance workers at the same time.
4. Grinding has low work efficiency and long cleaning cycle, which will result in high labor cost and transportation scheduling cost.
03 Innovative application of laser cleaning
Laser cleaning is a new cleaning method emerging in recent years, which has been successfully applied in many fields, such as industrial production, equipment processing and manufacturing, aerospace, cultural relics protection and so on.
Compared with traditional cleaning methods, the advantages of using laser to clean tracks are mainly as follows:
1. Laser cleaning is safer: The light source of the laser cleaning equipment can adapt to the arc surface of the steel track, thus minimizing damage to the substrate, improving cleanliness and prolonging the service life of the track.
2. Laser cleaning is more environmentally friendly: Laser cleaning equipment will not produce dust pollution during the cleaning process.
3. Laser cleaning is more convenient: laser cleaning equipment can be operated by one person, or cooperate with robots, and it does not require any adjustment of railway transport plan, and thus is higher in work efficiency and lower in cleaning cost.
