Railway track cleaning machine

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Railway track cleaning machine Amit Mundada Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India Email-amitmundadasj@gmail.com Jagadeesh.

1 Railway track cleaning machine Amit Mundada Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India Jagadeesh.S Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India Abstract This paper aims to present a prototype for a cost efficient Railway track cleaning machine which would prove to be a wonderful alternative to the current system in place if implemented. The proposed prototype is designed to overcome all the disadvantages of the current machine, and would help materialize the idea of super clean railway tracks across the nation. Keyword: drive shaft, elevator conveyor belt I. Introduction India is travelling towards the dream clean and green. Mere words create no impact on people. Preaching by action is our motto; our railway track cleaning machine keeps the railway track and its surroundings clean. This will motivate people to keep the city clean which will in turn help build a clean nation. Railway track cleaning machine is designed to provide the best cleaning facility with minimum power consumption and labour power. In view of promoting Swach Bharath Abhiyan, we have come up with this cost and power efficient prototype. Railways, by virtue of being a public transport system, is used by myriads of people and is thus littered frequently. Our main focus lies on simplifying the process of cleaning as much as possible, since tracks are to be cleaned frequently. This prototype is designed to remove waste (plastic covers, paper cups, polythene covers etc.) and store it in a separate cabin which would enable removal of all the wastes at once. The tracks, can then be cleaned with water at high pressure, with the latter composed of an equal amount of disinfectant and pleasant smelling liquid. Apart from cleaning the tracks, waste accumulated on the sides of the tracks can also be removed using the proposed prototype. A sponge is attached at the end of this compartment which facilitates absorption of excess water spilled on tracks during rainy seasons. There is also a space provided for the spare equipment, this space can also be used for people while transporting this locomotive to some other places from the place of manufacture. Enough empty places are provided around all the containers to make repairs with ease. II. Related works Fig. 1: This shows the cleaning machine designed by Indian Railways. Indian railways introduced this cleaning machine (designed and developed by Northern Railway capable of storing 6MT waste) in March 2014 [1]. Major disadvantage of this machine is that it requires very high power due to the use of inbuilt vacuum cleaner. Secondly, this machine is built solely for the purpose of

removing waste from the tracks; hence, the sides of the tracks remain unclean. This machine also requires a separate engine in place to be operational.

Last but not the least, the design of this system is different from that of the other commonly used compartments by the Indian Railways which makes it quite complicated to manufacture in other parts

2 removing waste from the tracks; hence, the sides of the tracks remain unclean. This machine also requires a separate engine in place to be operational. Considerable amount of human power is also inevitable to control the working of this machine. Last but not the least, the design of this system is different from that of the other commonly used compartments by the Indian Railways which makes it quite complicated to manufacture in other parts of the country other than where it is developed. Fig. 3: Have you ever noticed Railway tracks clean at least for few hours in a day? [4] The proposed prototype is designed to overcome these disadvantages by making use of technologically more improved and far efficient techniques. III. Problem definition One of the most important challenges faced by the Indian Railways is maintaining cleanliness in tracks, which is a tedious process. People are increasingly depending on railways as it is a cost efficient service. This gives rise to accumulation of waste products. Many projects have been undertaken by the government to keep the tracks clean, but the success rate of these projects are considerably low. Indian Railways had proposed a machine to clean the waste accumulated in tracks. Though it has its advantages, there are some drawbacks including life threat to workers due to risky conditions. Fig. 4: Would you recommend cleaning using automated brushes instead of vacuum cleaners in view of energy consumption and safety? [4] Fig. 5: Will you recommend spraying of tracks with disinfectant? [4] IV. Solution and discussion To solve this problem we have come up with a prototype which has the following features Fig. 2: Do you know that India has a machine to collect waste littered in tracks? [4] Length of compartment meters [2] Width of compartment meters [2] Height of compartment meters [2]

fi These are the standard measurements of Indian Railways for manufacturing compartments. Hence any existing compartment can be modified to suit these needs.

3 fi These are the standard measurements of Indian Railways for manufacturing compartments. Hence any existing compartment can be modified to suit these needs. will be of an arrangement similar to this, 1. A belt which picks all the waste in the tracks 2. A motor run automated brush which runs along the sides of tracks to collect all the waste in a place which can then be cleared using appropriate methods. 3. A disinfectant mixed with a pleasant smelling liquid is used to prevent the communicable diseases and diseases caused due to lack of cleanliness. Fig. 7: This is a normal type of brush without replacement [5] DETAILS OF COMPARTMENT This compartment can be divided into two major parts for holding an elevator conveyor belt with garbage containers and a tank mixed with disinfectant solution. A. Working of conveyor belt Fig.8: This is a holder that can be used to hold bristles [5] Major portion of the compartment is filled with an opposite sided elevated conveyor belt which is run by two motors. Either side of the belts are garbage containers to collect the waste with the help of conveyor belt. Fig. 9: This shows a removable bristle attached to a holder [5] Fig. 6: This shows conveyor belts depositing waste collected from tracks inside garbage containers. These conveyor belts are made of leather/synthetic material which has bristles of 0.91 meters in length and 1.82 meters wide all over it separated by 0.3 meters. These bristles can be made of recycled plastic. Bristles are placed in such a way that damaged bristles can be removed and replaced with new ones with ease. Bristles arrangement on conveyor belt Garbage containers on either side of the conveyor belts are made up of light-weight aluminum containers. A cover is wrapped inside these containers to make it easy to remove waste when the container is full. These containers are 4.09 meters in length,3.51 meters by height and 2.8 meters wide. A hollow space is created so that waste can be removed manually. Second pair of bristles are arranged on either front sides of the compartment facilitating the cleaning on the sides of track. On either side of the track there would be static bristle and rotating bristles. Rotating bristles are arranged to rotate in

4 outward direction from the track so that waste gets accumulated outside the tracks. A C- shaped hard brush which is beneath this rotating brush bristles collects all the waste thrown outward from track by rotating bristles. The rotating motion for the bristles is facilitated by two motors that runs the conveyor belts. Speed of the rotating bristles on the sides of the compartment can be optimized based on the speed of the train it is attached. Length of rotating brushes:0.52 meters Radius of C-shaped brushes arc:0.91 meters B. Water Storage Remaining space of the compartment is filled with a cylindrical galvanized steel compartment to hold the disinfectant solution which shares 1/4 th of total size. This is designed in such a way to prevent wastage of water by stagnation.cylindrical shape of container will be similar to this arrangement. C. Motors used C.1 Two motors of 1 hp is used to run the elevated conveyor belt. These motors are placed under the garbage containers. Drive shaft of these motors are extended more than normal so that a belt that runs the outer rotating bristles is connected along this. C.2 A motor is fixed under the compartment to spray the water along the tracks. This is optional since the disinfection differs from place to place depending on the surroundings. V. Conclusion and future works This prototype suits almost all climatic conditions. It can be attached to an existing compartment of a train or to a separate engine. This compartment can be made standalone and can be engineered with extremely low cost communication techniques to work without any external engine. Disin fectant soln. VI. Reference [1] [2] [3] [4] These are the questions asked to the people and the pie chart describes the responses made by people. (google forms) Fig. 10: This shows the arrangement of storage tank which holds disinfectant solution This arrangement is designed with diameter of 2.5 meters and 3 meters in height with storage capacity of 14,500 liters (approximately). Outlet of this water container is connected to a very low powered water pump which pressurizes the water and sprays throw sprayer for efficient water consumption. This is followed by a sponge which touches the ground and removes the excess water in places of wetlands or in rainy seasons. [5] Images used are a patent published by Mr. Perry S. Bagley of United States on Tool System with Replaceable Heads and Offset Handle US A1 [For Representative purpose only] 577

Design & Fabrication of Water Tank Cleaning Machine

Design & Fabrication of Water Tank Cleaning Machine Mr. Yogesh K. Chaudhari 1, Mr. Nitesh B. Patil 2, Mr. Sachine A. Khangal 3, Mr. Nisar S. Shaikh 4, Mr. Shrikant U.Nagare 5 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Dept. of Mechanical