news

Jimu News reporter Pan Xiheng

Correspondent Fu Yufan

On August 10, the temperature in Wuhan reached 40℃. The bearing cleaning room of the Jiang'an Depot of Wuhan Railway was "filled with smoke" and the air was filled with the special smell of cleaning agent. Bearing accessories covered with oil were lined up on the assembly line waiting for "sauna".

Axle repairman Yang Shengli is sweating profusely as he steams, cleans and dries these parts. After the entire process, the internal and external components of the bearings emit a metallic luster and are then sent to the next maintenance station.

Bearings are equivalent to the "joints" in the running parts of railway freight cars. They have many parts and high process standards, and are key accessories to ensure the safe operation of trains.

"After the bearings are removed from the vehicles and transported here, they must go through several processes including calibration, cleaning, appearance inspection, testing, flaw detection, grease injection and pressing. Finally, they are packaged and shipped away and reinstalled back on the trucks for use." said Zhang Wei, head of the bearing maintenance team.

These jobs sound simple, but in fact, each process is very difficult. The first test is physical strength, as each bearing weighs nearly 70 kilograms. In the hot summer weather, the amount of vehicle bearing inspections increases, and workers have to bend over tens of thousands of times a day and repeatedly move nearly 10,000 kilograms of weight. When they get off work, they all have sore backs and are so tired that they can't even lift their hands.

The bearings to be repaired are all rusty, and the staff have to remove the rust from them one by one, then disassemble them, and then go through the rough cleaning, fine cleaning, drying and other processes. There is black grease on the bearings, and high-temperature cleaning is a key step. The temperature, pressure and concentration of the cleaning liquid are strictly regulated. The water temperature for boiling and washing cannot exceed 80 degrees Celsius, otherwise it will corrode the bearing parts; it cannot be lower than 75 degrees Celsius, otherwise it will not be clean.

"Wuhan's summer is very long, the workshop is like a sauna, the greasy mist sticks to the body, and the unpleasant smell is hard to wash off," said Yang Shengli, an axle repairman. The reporter saw in the bearing cleaning room that there was always mist rising from the dirty water, and the workers were in an environment with a temperature of more than 36 degrees Celsius and a humidity of more than 70% for a long time, which made them feel very uncomfortable.

"Bearing cleaning seems simple, but it should not be taken lightly. If it is not cleaned thoroughly, it will affect the next step of inspection. If minor internal scratches, cracks, pores and other problems on the bearing caused by oil pollution are not detected, an accident will occur." Yang Shengli said.

The temperature of the accessories that have just come out of the oven can be as high as over 80 degrees Celsius. In order to prevent the cleaning fluid and grease from solidifying and being unable to be wiped clean after the temperature drops, the decorator needs to put on gloves immediately after the accessories come out of the cleaning machine, pick up the white cloth and wipe them carefully and repeatedly to make the bearings shine with metallic luster.

After the "sauna", the bearings are again inspected for appearance, parts size, outer ring flaw detection, grease injection, accessories installation, packaging and other processes, and then installed back into the truck body after assembly. Since the summer transportation, the axle workshop of Jiangan Vehicle Depot has pressed more than 2,000 sets of bearings, inspected 1,322 pairs of wheelsets, flaw-detected 1,076 pairs of wheelsets, and assembled 1,032 pairs of wheelsets, ensuring safe and smooth railway transportation under the test of high temperatures.

(Source: Jimu News)

For more exciting information, please download the "Jimu News" client from the application market. Please do not reprint without authorization. You are welcome to provide news clues, and you will be paid once adopted.