Volume 15: Low Carbon Cities and Urban Energy Systems: Part IV

Zero-energy snow removal system for track switch based on air forced field Lingfei Qi, Mingkun Jiang, Jinyue Yan

Abstract

With the rapid development of railway traffic in China’s alpine regions, real-time self-powered snow removal is an important route for cleaning track switch, which currently still use manual sweeping or electrical heating. These two traditional snow removal methods require large amounts of manpower or electricity. Here we propose a zero-energy snow clearing device that can continuously remove snow for switch only by track vibration. This device mainly contains a motion conversion mechanism and an air compression component. The motion conversion mechanism can amplify the micro-vibration of the rail and act as a mechanical engine (ME) that drives the air compression component to generate high-pressure air to blow off the snow at the track switch. A prototype was manufactured to demonstrate the feasibility of the design. From the high-pressure air generated by rail vibration to the process of snow removal, it is a nature cycle of no external energy consumption.

Keywords Qinghai-Tibet Railway, Tibet Plateau, Railway snow removal, energy harvesting, self-power.