From certification to the declaration

15.06.2010 (13:56)

Russia is on track to import advanced technical approaches. It creates conditions to adopt engineering innovations as quickly as possible, bringing a qualitatively new level of security and comfort, energy efficiency and reliability.

Here we speak with Valentin Gapanovich, Senior Vice President of RZD, Chief Engineer of RZD and President of NP UIRE.

- Valentin Aleksandrovich, what do you think can be done, in order to make the necessary for industries changes and amendments in the Law "On Technical Regulation"?

- The law is to be obeyed by everyone, once it is adopted. NP UIRE is actively involved in efforts to make necessary changes in this document, so that it is to be more accurate, meeting interests of Russian manufacturers, having no unnecessary barriers, and simultaneously safety oriented. Collegial discussions of specifics and additional decisions proposing amendments to certain articles will be organized at a round table during the upcoming 1st International Scientific & Practical Conference "The Railway Industry: Priorities, Technologies and Prospects”. I am sure the conference will provide an objective picture, consider all aspects and take the most competent decisions.

- The Customs Union will come into effect on July 1. How will the Russian railway technical regulations work in the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space?

- Formally, the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan has already been effective since January 2010. It was supposed that all contentious issues would be settled by July, but some differences are still remaining unresolved. Thus, a moderated customs policy will result in integration of economies, expanding cooperation and intensifying interaction between the three states. As regards our country's railway transport technical regulations, the harmonisation of our regulatory framework with the laws of the CIS, EU and Asian countries was always our task number one, therefore no major changes will be required in these documents. Thus, generally speaking, they will become a basis for the common Customs Union documentation. We support the idea of a transition from the universal compulsory certification to the declaration of the manufacturer's responsibility. I would like to emphasise that it must not reduce the requirements to railway engineering in terms of product safety anyhow.

- NP UIRE has repeatedly raised the issue about the quality of supplied parts, in particular, large casting for wagons, and the rolling stock itself. What steps are RZD and NP UIRE undertaking in order to prevent supplying our network with defective or counterfeit production?

- A special attention is given to the quality of the wagon casting, because until now there have been kinks in the solebars of freight trains, due to manufacturing faults. This year, 15 cases of kinked lateral frames of the bogies have occurred on the RZD's network, and 13 of them caused the derailment of rolling stock. Urgent measures to improve the quality of the wagon casting are being worked out at the meetings of the Quality Committee of The Union of Industries of Railway Equipment. The production quality at foundries is under our constant supervision. As a result, there is no need anymore to remove defects in the radius 55 danger zone by means of welding. We have restricted our requirements to the correction work with casting defects, in terms of both sizes and quality. New enhanced types of solebars and bogie bolsters have been developed. However, unfortunately, the main goal has not been achieved yet, so kinks solebars still occur.

There are only two main reasons for it. One is that manufacturing technology is not observed, and another one is that the non-destructive testing systems are not developed well enough yet. Here the important point is that the search for better methods of control can be done combining efforts of all interested parties, whilst bringing order to the technological discipline must be done by manufacturers.

Also, it is necessary to develop a new unified national standard for casting. The technology has been considerably changed recently, RZD has worked out new requirements, new types of casting parts have appeared, but the industrial normative documentation is still the same, the old one. It is difficult to overestimate the role of nondestructive testing to ensure the safety of casting parts. Manufacturers have discovered that the methods used do not guarantee identification of all defects. Therefore, it is high time to apply more actively such methods as acoustic control, fluoroscopy, magnetic method using amplifying phosphors, etc. It is necessary to take up new approaches to verify the effectiveness of nondestructive testing methods, and this is mentioned in the new technical requirements established by RZD.

- Is there any progress with the joint project, which assumes that RZD uses engineering units made by Tatravagonka? When will the production of this enterprise appear on our network?

- The trial of TVR 2009 bogie continues in the VNIKTI rolling stock testing centre, including running tests on the proving ground with straight sections, curves of radius 300, 600 and 1000 metres, on the tracks of different types with both concrete and wooden sleepers, and with turnouts. An opportunity is currently under consideration to use this bogies under tank wagons. The next testing stage is flatcars. So far, the Tatravagonka production confirms its high dynamic, mechanical, brakes and operational characteristics declared by the manufacturer.

Acceptance trial of the multiple type flat wagon 13-9851 to carry large containers took place last March. Following these tests, a decision was made to produce a starting set of 400 wagons. According to the contract between TransContainer and Tatravagonka, the first batch of the multiple type flat wagons will be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Interviewed by Maria Shevchenko
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