This document provides information about the Research Designs and Standards Organization (RDSO) in India. It discusses that RDSO was established in 1957 by merging the Central Standards Office and Railway Testing and Research Centre to be the sole research and development organization for Indian Railways. It is headed by a Director General and has various directorates. The document describes some of RDSO's laboratories including the Air Brake Laboratory, Brake Dynamometer Laboratory, Fatigue Testing Laboratory, and Measuring Wheel Laboratory which are used to test braking systems, materials, and rolling stock performance.

1. A
presentation
On
Research Design and Standards Organisation
PRESENTED BY :-
GAGAN GUPTA
Uni. Roll No-1405640062
FINAL YEAR

2. INTRODUCTION
• Railways were introduced in India in 1853 and as their development
progressed through to the twentieth century, several companies managed
and state-owned railway systems grew up.
• the Indian Railway Conference Association (IRCA) was set up in 1903,
followed by the Central Standards Office (CSO) in 1930, for preparation of
designs, standards and specifications.
• However, till independence, most of the designs and manufacture of
railway equipments was entrusted to foreign consultants. With
Independence and the resultant phenomenal increase in country’s industrial
and economic activity,

3. • Which increased the demand of rail transportation- a new organization
called Railway Testing and Research Centre (RTRC) was setup in 1952 at
Lucknow, for testing and conducting applied research for development of
railway rolling stock, permanent way etc.
• Central Standards office (CSO) and the Railway Testing and Research
Centre (RTRC) were integrated into a single unit named Research Designs
and Standards Organization (RDSO) in 1957, under Ministry of Railways
at Lucknow.
• The status of RDSO has been changed from an „Attached Office‟ to
„Zonal Railway‟ since 01.01.2003.

4. ORGANISATION
• RDSO is headed by a Director General. The Director General is assisted by
additional Director General, Sr. Executive Directors and Executive
Directors, heading different directorates. RDSO has various directorates for
smooth functioning:
• Bridges and Structures , Carriage , Defense Research , Electrical Loco ,
EMU & Power supply , Engine Development , Finance & Accounts ,Geo-
technical Engineering ,Quality Assurance, Metallurgical & Chemical,
• All the directorates of RDSO except Defense Research are located at
Lucknow. Cells for Railway Production Units and industries, which look
after liaison, inspection and development work, are located at Bangalore,
Bharatpur, Bhopal, Mumbai, Burnpur, Kolkata, Chittaranjan , Kapurthala,
Jhansi, Chennai, Sahibabad, Bhilai and New Delhi.

5. QUALITY POLICY
• To develop safe, modern and cost effective Railway technology complying
with Statutory and Regulatory requirements, through excellence in
Research, Designs and Standards and Continual improvements in Quality
Management System to cater to growing demand of passenger and freight
traffic on the railways.
• QUALITY ASSURANCE Hitherto, the quality assurance function in
respect of vendor approval and purchase inspection of these items including
publication of vendor directories was being looked after by individual
technical directorates of RDSO along with their normal functions of
research, development and standardization.
• To impart greater thrust to quality assurance, Railway Board has approved
the creation of a separate Quality Assurance Organisation at RDSO in Sept.
2002 for Technical disciplines i.e. Mechanical Engg. Including M&C, Civil
Engg., S&T & Electrical Engg.

6. FUNCTIONS
• RDSO is the sole R&D organization of Indian Railways and functions as
the Technical advisor to Railway Board, Zonal Railways and Production
Units and performs the following important functions:
• Development of new and improved designs.
• Development, adoption, absorption of new technology for use on Indian
Railways.
• Development of standards for materials and products specially needed by
Indian Railways.
• Technical investigation, statutory clearances, testing and providing
consultancy services
• Inspection of critical and safety items of rolling stock, locomotives,
signaling & telecommunication equipment and track components.
• RDSO‟s multifarious activities have also attracted attention of railway and
non-railway organizations in India and abroad.

7. AIR BREAK LAB
• Air Brake Laboratory is equipped with facilities for simulating operation of
air brakes on freight trains up to 192 wagons and 3 locomotives as also for
simulation of passenger trains up to 30 coaches.
• The laboratory is equipped with a Test Rig having the complete pneumatic
circuits of 192 wagons and 30 coaches with twin pipe air brake system.

8. • The laboratory is equipped with a single car test rig and an endurance test
rig for distributor valves. Brakes are essentially meant for controlling the
speed and stopping of train.
• However, whatever may be the brake system it should have the following
basic requirements .
• Should be automatic and continuous i.e., at the event of train parting brake
should apply.
• Shortest possible emergency braking distance.
• Maximum possible brake force.
• Shortest brake application time.
• Shortest brake release time.
• Low exhaustibility of brake power under continuous or repeated brake
application.
• Minimum run-in and snatch action during braking.

9. COMPONENTS OF AIR BRAKE SYSTEM
• Single pipe graduated release air brake system is used in air braked
wagons. The main components of this system are :-
• Distributor valve
• Brake Cylinder
• Auxiliary reservoir
• control reservoir
• Brake pipe and feed pipe
• Flexible House Coupling
• Rubber House pipe

10. WORKING PRINCIPLE OF AIR
BRAKE SYSTEM
• In air brake system compressed air is used for operating the brake system.
The locomotive compressor charges the Feed pipe and Brake pipe
throughout the length of the train.
• The feed pipe is connected to the Auxiliary reservoir and the brake pipe is
connected to the distributor valve.
• AR is also connected to the BC through DV. The brake application takes
place by dropping the air pressure in the brake pipe by the driver from
locomotive by the application of A-9 valve. Following three activities
involved in this system:

11. BASIC REQUIREMENTS TO DESIGN
THE BRAKE SYSTEM
While designing the brake system, the following are the basic requirements,
which kept in the mind:
• Brake system should be in operation and reliable.
• Should be continuous and being applied to each vehicle in the train.
• Should be self-employing in case of train parting.
• Should have minimum number of parts.
• Should apply equal forces on each wheel.
• Should have maximum possible braking force.
• Should have shorter brake application time.
• Should have shorter brake release time.
• Low exhaustibility of brake power under continuous repeated brake
application.

12. ADVANTAGES OF AIR BRAKE
SYSTEM
• It has higher rate of propagation.
• It has shorter brake application and release time.
• Brake fade does not take place, therefore, the train can be held on down
grade without any difficulty for a considerably longer period.
• It has higher degree of reliability, controllability and maintainability.
• Rigging is simple and entire equipment’s are lighter and required less
space.
• Simple maintenance through calling for a higher degree of skill.
• Provide for higher operating speed.
• Caters for smaller emergency braking distance.

13. BRAKE DYNAMOMETER LAB
• Brake Dynamometer Laboratory of RDSO has a dynamometer supplied by
M/s MAN, Germany. It was commissioned in 1974 for study of brake
material characteristics, development of new brake materials, study of
braking effect on wheels and quality control of brake block.
• The dynamometer has facilities for simulation of maximum road speed of
245kmph with a one meter dia. wheel. An axle load up to 25t. And
maximum brake force of 6000kg pr brake block can also be simulated. In
addition to dry rail condition, spraying water continuously on the wheel
surface can also simulate wet rail conditions.
• For simulation of air impinging on the wheel, while the train is running,
blower fan having speeds of 750,1000 and 1500rpm has been provided
with the equipment and for extracting smoke, fumes and dust of the brake
blocks from the test space.

14. • Various brake characteristics e.g. speed, braking time, run out revolution,
brake torque, brake horse power, brake energy are recorded by the data
acquisition system. The temperature of the Brake Block is also recorded in
the data acquisition system.
• The value of mean coefficient of friction for individual brake applications
is also recorded in DAS.A graph of instantaneous µ versus speed is also
drawn for each brake application.

15. FATIGUE TESTING LAB
• To conduct general fatigue test on full scale structures a closed loop
electro-hydraulic servo controlled fatigue testing system of 44 tone
capacity with facility of testing full size structures simulated service
condition was installed in the fatigue lab of RDSO in year 1972. This
system was procured from MTS/USA.
• Then because of the capacity and design constraint a new 100 tone capacity
fatigue system was procured from M/s Instorn U.K. and installed in fatigue
lab in 1997.
• The test system basically consists of closed loop electro-hydraulic
computerized fatigue testing equipment. It is provided with two hydraulic
power supplies for generating high hydraulic pressure required for
producing the desire forces.

16. • The desired level of loading is achieved by the controller in computerized
control equipment of the system. A command signal is fed to the input
module which passes it on to a servo controller.
• The desire load is achieved through under mentioned set of dynamic
actuators, one 50 tone and three 35 tone capacity reaction frames mounted
on rail type slotted bed of 7.5m*14m size.
•

17. MEASURING WHEEL LAB
• Measuring Wheel is a fundamental device needed for the study of ride
behavior of railway vehicles.
• It measures the forces acting on the vehicle at rail-vehicle contact point,
thereby giving valuable information needed to determine different
performance parameters of rolling stock.

18. • Measuring Wheel is used to measure Vertical and Lateral Forces acting on
the vehicle at the point of rail-wheel contact. With these forces known other
important performance parameters can be derived. Rail safety can hence be
ensured by studying these parameters and monitoring them throughout the
journey.
• This rig is designed to simulate the loading conditions which rolling stock
experiences on a railway track in running condition.
• This rig actuates ramp load both vertically and laterally on wheel under
development using hydraulic force and its controllers and see result of a
collaborative effort of various Indian Railways Entities and Departments
Maintained by CRIS, Ministry of Railways, Government of India.

19. THANKYOU