High-performance U-shaped steel Anti-Falling Beam Restraint Technology Fortifies the Safety Line of High-speed Railway Bridges

Earthquakes, as a natural disaster, pose significant threats to building and bridge structures. Especially with high-speed rail becoming a major mode of travel for people, it is particularly crucial to ensure the safety and stability of bridges. To meet this pressing demand, the U-shaped steel anti-falling beam restraint device, jointly developed by the China Academy of Railway Sciences (CARS) and other institutions, has built a solid safety line for high-speed railway bridges with its innovative technical concept and high performance.

The R&D of this product represents a major breakthrough in bridge protection technology and is of great significance for improving the construction quality and safety of China’s high-speed railway bridges. Ingeniously adopting the design concept of ‘overcoming hardness with softness’, the U-shaped steel anti-falling beam restraint device not only significantly enhances the beam falling resistance of bridges but also features a damping and energy dissipation function. With a design life matching that of the main structure, the device ensures the stability and safety of bridge structures through a three-stage design concept encompassing shock absorption and energy dissipation, precision displacement control, and ultimate beam falling prevention.

Product Highlights:

Intelligent Manufacturing

Relying on automated production lines and core process technologies, Newtery achieves precise control from raw materials to finished products, ensuring excellent quality and performance of every single product. Intelligent manufacturing not only boosts production efficiency but also delivers remarkable results in energy conservation, environmental protection, safety and reliability.

Strict Quality Control

During the production and manufacturing process, strict physical and chemical performance tests are conducted on raw materials to ensure compliance with quality standards; intelligent control and detection are applied to core process technologies to guarantee product performance; and mechanical performance tests are carried out on finished products to ensure their stable and reliable operation in use.

The U-shaped steel anti-falling beam restraint device imposes stringent technical requirements on manufacturing, inspection and testing, with extremely high standards set for every process. Production manager of Wuhan Newtery pointed out that raw material inspection, 3D full-size inspection and laser marking process ensure product traceability; while pulse preheating, CNC forming and harmonic crystallization processing machining ensure our products meet the mechanical performance requirements. Every link must be strictly controlled with no room for slack. This series of rigorous processes benefits from the perfect integration of intelligent production lines and core process technologies, effectively preventing any potential defective products from entering subsequent production stages.

Technical and quality head stated that the U-shaped steel anti-falling beam restraint device is the last line of defense for the safety of railway bridges, and the inflow of non-conforming products will bring enormous potential safety hazards to railway bridges. The finished product visual inspection system conducts full-size inspection on all outgoing products; in strict accordance with the requirements of Railway Bridge Bearings - Part 2: Spherical Bearings (Q/CR 756.2-2020), a random inspection of mechanical performance is carried out for 0.6 per mill of each batch of finished products with a minimum of 6 pieces, to ensure that each product achieves the designed beam falling prevention force at the designed displacement and shows no cracks or connection failure occur after 15 cycles at the designed displacement. In terms of technical and quality control, to meet the requirement of stable performance under extreme conditions, the R&D team conducted extensive research and testing, successfully achieving the target specifications through several process improvements.

At present, the U-shaped steel anti-falling beam restraint device has been applied for more than 30 national patents, and its technical requirements have been formulated into China Railway enterprise standards. The device has been successfully applied to multiple high-speed railway and urban railway lines, achieving remarkable protection effects. Looking ahead, with the advancement of technology and the continuous expansion of applications, the innovative device will play an even more important role in the field of bridge protection. We look forward to cooperating with more peers in the industry to jointly promote the innovation and development of bridge protection technology and contribute to building a safer, more efficient and greener transportation network.