DB ESG
Assembly Line
Keep rolling: Inside DB ESG's additive manufacturing lab
The rail industry is uniquely challenged by part obsolescence. According to the Office of Rail and Road statistics, the average age of rolling stock for all passenger train operators as of March last year was 16.7 years, but they can run much longer before being retired. Much of British Rail legacy vehicles are made up of cast aluminium parts made by someone, somewhere, now long retired, and the impact of privatisation also means that manufacturers of many of those earlier vehicles simply don’t exist anymore or designs have been lost.
3D scanning has also proven a useful third prong of its digital manufacturing business, not only for digitising parts, but to measure accuracy and investigate failures. DB ESG was recently tasked by a customer with scanning the fuel tanks of several different vehicle classes to alleviate concerns around structural integrity. The scans, compared against a model created from the original drawings, provided such a high level of detail that they were able to produce a full structural report containing indicators of distortion, weld-failure and even failed internal baffles.
But 3D printing can also be used as a tool to reduce risk. Across the way from the 3D print lab is a prime example, where the team has built a full-scale 3D printed mock-up of a new train cab desk. It’s wired in with functional lights and buttons to feel like the real thing and allow drivers to familiarise themselves with a new layout before going into production.
The DB ESG print lab is filled with examples of where AM has proven effective: in a re-engineered cab handset for a London Underground train, which was 3D scanned and redesigned to remove common failure points, or the large power brake controller cover, which was printed in ULTEM 9085 and found to be a suitable replacement. The team never knows what kind of challenge will come through the door, whether it’s a train door opening on the wrong side, or a solution for tactile signage, but it has spent the last six years building its capabilities as a rolling stock digital manufacturer to ensure it has a solution.