Prototype of portable measurement instrument for turnout motor power in railway system

Abstract

A prototype of rail turnout motor measurement device was designed based on motor torque inspection, using a load cell sensor. A rail turnout is a branched railroad construction to control the railroad track that controlled by turnout motor, therefore it is one of important railways elements for guiding and directing the train to not derailment or collide with another train. The device was made in order to check the reliability of turnout machine in railway systems. In Indonesia, currently the inspection of turnout machine was done manually and still not so efficient in term of the process. Here, we built a portable system device consisted of load sensor, processed with a microcontroller and the data were recorded and displayed in a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). The device was tested directly to a turnout machine on the railroad at Kiara Condong Station, Bandung, Indonesia. The measured results showed that the device working properly and the average pulling strength of turnout machine at the station was 256.6 ± 2.88 kg.