OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2010. Interpipe NTRP, railway wheels manufacturer under the KLW brand, developed and handed over 955 mm railway wheels manufacturing technology to the Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP), Durgapur, India. Interpipe experts developed and handed over to the customer complete technology right from deformation tools to technical documentation for manufacturing of 955 mm for local EMU trains. These wheels are manufactured locally for the first time.

The contract covered the whole scope of works related with the FEM analysis, design calculations, forging, rolling and machining of the wheels starting with the cutting of ingots and finishing with the final dimensions inspection. The whole project was carried on under supervision of the Research Designs & Standards Organization (RDSO) of Indian State Railways.

As a part of the project, Interpipe NTRP handed over equipment including rolls, dies, calibration wheels developed with taking into consideration the special features of the Indian plant, as well as measurement tools for the ready wheels. The related technological documentation was developed by Interpipe NTRP project group and adopted by the RDSO.

Interpipe’s IT experts developed software for the CNC machines for the overall final machining of railway wheels. Previously DSP did not have an experience of machining of the wheels of such a complicated design for the given tolerances.

In June 2010 technologists and engineers of Interpipe NTRP in collaboration with experts of Durgapur Steel Plant produced the first production batch of 500 pieces of 955 mm monobloc railway wheels, producing maximum supply correct wheels for final inspection.

Michael Is’kov, Director for Railway Wheel Sales at Interpipe said: “This project is one of not numerous technology transferring projects realized by CIS countries.  Only technologically solid companies with strong production basis can offer new products development and implementation service.  The Interpipe Company has above 70 years experience of producing railway wheels and is one of the world leaders in the industry. This allows us to propose such complex solutions to our clients.”

This is not the first successful experience of collaboration between Interpipe and India in the technological sphere. In 2001, when Indian railways made the decision to reequip the EMU wheels from compound wheels to monobloc ones, Interpipe won a tender for developing the design. Interpipe’s wheel design was handed over to Indian railways after trial batch of 1000 wheels were successfully tested in operation.