Research On Design And Calibration Of Force Sensor For Actuator Rod Of Turnout Switch Machine

With the growth of China’s railway traffic,the speed and frequency of the train through the switch has been increasing,so the switch has become more and more dependent on the switch machine.The switch machine is a fault-prone part of the railway system,which directly affects the efficiency and safety of railway transportation.It is urgent to carry out online health monitoring for switch machine.Real-time evaluation of switch health status and timely and efficient maintenance of equipment can greatly improve the safety of railway transportation system.As the core executive component of switch conversion,the actuator rod is driven by the torque output of switch machine,and locks the switch in specified position through the locking rod to realize the switch of train running line.If the actuator rod is stressed too much,the track will be extruded and deformed during long-term operation.If the force is too small,the actuator rod may not push the sharp rail in place,which may lead to the derailment of the train,so it is very important to monitor the force state of the actuator rod.At present,the main measurement methods used in railway system are manual inspection or indirect estimation of electrical parameters,which cannot meet the demand of direct and real-time monitoring.This paper aims at the direct and real-time health monitoring of the force state of actuator rod in railway switch system,designed and developed a kind of force sensor for actuator rod of switch machine,and around the calibration and data monitoring of the force sensor,established a calibration platform and monitoring system.Finally,a series of tests were carried out on the force sensor using these platforms and equipment,including calibration test,temperature test and online test,to test the performance parameters and actual working effect of the force sensor.The specific work of this paper is as follows:1.Aiming at the difficulty of force value measurement of large stiffness structural parts,the design and solution were made from the installation scheme,structural design and signal acquisition.Simulation software was used for simulation analysis,and the design scheme of force sensor for actuator rod was formed finally.2.Aiming at the calibration of force sensor for actuator rod,the calibration platform was established.Two sets of main structure of calibration platform were designed to adapt to different application scenarios.At the same time,the loading module of the calibration platform was designed to meet the special requirements of hydraulic loading of the project.3.Aiming at the real-time monitoring of the signal of force sensor for actuator rod,the monitoring system was established,including the hardware construction of the monitoring box and the development of the monitoring software,realizing the real-time,long-term and wireless monitoring of the force sensor signal.4.Combined with the calibration platform and monitoring system established above,a series of tests were carried out on the force sensor for actuator rod,including calibration test,temperature test and online test,to test and verify the performance parameters and actual effects of the force sensor for actuator rod.Finally,this paper proposed a design scheme of force sensor for actuator rod of switch machine,and developed the calibration platform and monitoring system of the force sensor.The test results show that the sensor has good linearity and the measuring accuracy is better than 1%FS.This kind of force sensor for actuator rod solves the measurement problem caused by the great stiffness of the actuator rod,and realizes the direct and real-time measurement of the force state of the actuator rod,which has great application value and development potential in the field of railway system monitoring.