Experience of Shunting Troubleshooting in Operation

01 Event Background

POMA equipment consists of a 3-station cableway with an intermediate station. The cableway has an inclined length of 4211 meters, a one-way capacity of 1500 people per hour, a peak operating speed of 6m/s, and 86 carriages. The distance between the suspension boxes is 113.77 meters. The cableway has been in operation for 32000 hours since March 28, 2013.

02 Event Description

One of the common malfunctions in the operation of cable cars is the issue of distance between vehicles. If the squeezing phenomenon is not handled properly, it will become more serious. Quickly eliminating the distance fault during operation is of great significance to us. In this article, we share our experience in troubleshooting the squeezing fault during the operation of a cableway.

03 Processing Procedure

3.1 In general, the slippage and jamming of the cable carrier in the station are mostly caused by this reason, leading to changes in the distance between carriages. There are many factors that can cause the rope gripper to get stuck and slip inside the station; Loose shunting motor belt, insufficient tension of the station trolley belt and power take-off belt, severe wear of the power take-off wheel liner, insufficient tire pressure or one tire blowout, excessive wear of the tire or friction plate, oil on the friction plate, damaged walking wheel bearings leading to increased resistance during station passage, foreign objects in the walking track, damaged balance wheel operating wheel jamming the cable holder, frequent parking times. There is another phenomenon that can cause trucks to stop at roundabout stations, where a cable gripper happens to stop at the interface between the shunting tire and the normal acceleration and deceleration section. After stopping, the roundabout wheel will swing back and forth, causing the cable gripper to get stuck within this distance. If you drive again, be sure to pay attention to whether the suspension device has moved. If it gets stuck, manually operate the motor in reverse. When a certain carriage passes through two stations and triggers a shunting deceleration warning (also known as a small yellow dot), first visually inspect the distance between the suspension carriages, and then check whether the suspension device's walking wheel rotates smoothly when the carriage passes. If it is damaged, immediately take it back to the garage for repair.

3.2 Improper shunting operation: A cableway has two garages in total. When starting the train, the middle station starts first and waits until the coverage reaches 3196 meters before the next station starts to depart. The distance between the two departure motors will definitely have an error. The distance between the next station and the middle station is larger than the distance between the middle station and the upper station. We have chosen the carriage of the middle station as the first carriage for adjustment several times during shunting, because the carriage of the middle station is several meters smaller than the normal value, so each carriage presses backwards in the shunting area. If the cableway runs slowly at this time, it will soon reach a certain hanging carriage and cause a collision. If the cableway runs at a fast speed, in addition to the above phenomenon, another phenomenon may occur. When the accumulated distance you press is too large, the system will default to having one empty space again. For more serious cases, there may be two or three empty spaces. We have experienced the phenomenon of 86+2 when sending out 86 carriages. When two empty spaces appear, the system will not compress the distance as it did initially. If there is a problem with the overall number of carriages for shunting, the benchmark will remain unchanged, and the carriages will definitely not be able to be adjusted. The bad solution is to take them away and start the train again. Another phenomenon is that when we usually depart, the middle station departs first, and the next station prepares for departure by stopping the carriage in the waiting area. When the first carriage from the middle station departs, the counting starts. When the carriage from the middle station has a remaining 2200 meters of the system set value, the next station's departure system automatically starts and synchronously departs. It continues until the last carriage from the middle station completes its departure, which happens to be the time when the first carriage from the next station enters the middle station. At this time, it is also the first interface between the next station and the middle station's carriage. If the first carriage from the middle station does not stop well when preparing for departure, the last carriage from the middle station will follow the first carriage from the next station. A collision occurred in a carriage. The choice is very important. For example, during the annual inspection, parking will be very frequent, which will cause changes in the distance between the carriages in the station and the carriages on the line. The more times you stop, the more frequent you will find that there are crowded carriages in some places. At this time, if you choose any position to start shunting, you will definitely stop. If each hanging carriage accelerates forward when entering the shunting area, the possibility of crowding is very small. If we choose the wrong one, when a certain carriage enters the shunting area, it will be pushed backwards as a whole, and crowding will occur quickly. Therefore, it is recommended that we generally choose the last hanging carriage after squeezing as the first shunting carriage.When a cableway is running normally, both the up and down station shunting work. When there is a problem with the spacing between a certain section of the carriage, there are two or three hanging carriages piled up to enter and exit the station. Each time they enter and exit the station, it will cause a stop. Record the hanging carriage number. When it is about to enter, the next station chooses the carriage after the collision as the first one to start shunting because the adjustment range of the carriage after the collision is small and the amplitude is also small, ensuring that a certain distance is normal. The upper station cancels shunting and manually adjusts the carriage spacing 5-6 cars in advance, reserving enough distance for the colliding hanging carriage in advance. After the collision hanging carriage enters the station, manually adjust the distance until it no longer stops entering and exiting the station. The upper station chooses shunting, and the cableway runs at high speed because of high speed. The distance for adjusting the operation is small, and if the speed is too slow, it may cause the shunting distance to be too large and result in crowding or parking. Another very basic mistake is that when a crane box on the line is put into the garage due to a malfunction, we did not adjust the shunting mode to the empty space shunting mode in a timely manner. For example, when 86 carriages are fully loaded and one carriage is put into the garage due to a door opening and closing malfunction, you did not choose to use the empty space shunting. The shunting system still shunts according to the distance between 86 carriages. When the shunting is completed, the system cannot find the car that is not in the middle, and it will not treat the empty space in the middle as an empty space. The original first carriage will be treated as the last carriage for shunting, so the reference of the first carriage will change every time it passes through a circle. The shunting system has been working continuously. Work ultimately led to the disorder of all carriage positions, resulting in overcrowding and collisions. 3.3 Electrical reasons generally result in a low probability of distance failure due to electrical reasons. There has been a case in the operation of the Taihua Cableway where the speed of the trolley motor was not synchronized with the speed of the cableway, and the distance between the carriages sent out did not match the set value. It was discovered in a timely manner that the already sent carriages were retrieved from the garage and the system was restarted. The train departs normally again.

04 Other inspections

When a traffic jam occurs.

05 Analysis

Principle of shunting: Adjust the running speed of four trolley tires through a 380V motor to adjust the pulse passing through the carriage. When the distance between carriages is too large, accelerate through the shunting motor to reduce the distance. When the distance between carriages is too small, decelerate to increase the distance between carriages. The distance adjusted during the shunting period will not exceed the large pulse, otherwise it will cause parking. POMA sets three shunting modes: synchronous mode, shunting mode, and empty space shunting. During general operation, the first carriage is initialized and set as the reference. Each carriage adjusts its position based on the first carriage as the starting point. The distance changes from the moment the wire rope is detached, and the reasons for the occurrence of distance faults are roughly as follows: ① Slip and blockage in the rope gripper station; ② Improper shunting operation; ③ Electrical reasons.

Source: Shaanxi Passenger Cableway Amusement Equipment Association

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