Schaeffler Group Contributes to TGV World Record
When the V150 high-speed train – whose designation indicates a speed of 150 meters per second – set a new world record on rails recently reaching 574.8 kilometers per hour, the Schaeffler Group was one of those delighted with the achievement. In particular, the developers from Schaeffler Group Industrial and the production staff as well as the application and field service engineers from Schaeffler France took this success to be a proof of their excellent work. For although the FAG-brand cylindrical roller bearings, four-point bearings and tapered roller bearings used in the gearboxes and traction motors have been tailored to railway applications, they were not especially manufactured for the record run, but came from normal series production. For many years now, FAG has supplied ALSTOM and SNCF with drive bearings for the various TGV generations.
Naturally the 234-ton, 100 meter-long V150 record train is no ordinary TGV but was especially configured for the record run. At both ends, it is equipped with new TGV-POS power cars. Between these two, the train comprises three TGV Duplex based railcars. The center railcar shares the motorized bogies – borrowed from the latest ALSTOM development AGV – with the two adjacent carriages. The traction equip-ment is located underneath the bar car in the middle of the trainset so that it can drive the adjacent AGV-based bogies.
The performance data show just how reliable the bearings in the traction motors and gearboxes actually were: After all, they had to transmit the enormous drive power of 19.6 megawatts (some 25,000 hp) onto the rail with as little friction as possible. To put it another way: The bearings used here were designed for normal traffic “only”, when the TGV is operated with just half the power. So the Railway Product Line at Schaeffler KG is highly satisfied with this performance demonstration. Since the FAG bearings performed brilliantly during the record run, they will be all the more capable of rendering reliable performance during normal operation.
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