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Spanish company Masats develops space-saving light rail doors with components from igus®
Developing compact passenger doors for new light rail vehicles on the Metro del Valles line in Barcelona: That is the job of the Spanish company Masats. To save space, the engineers are using chainflex® control cable and e-chain® from igus® in the opening mechanisms of the doors.

Profile

What was needed: control cable
Requirements: space-saving, durable and low-maintenance components
Industry: railway technology
Success for the customer: Developing compact passenger doors for new light rail vehicles on the Metro del Valles line in Barcelona

Problem

Have you ever been to Placa de Catalunya in Barcelona? Perhaps you even got on the light rail there? Then you have probably used the Metro del Valles - a line that will also serve the Catalonian industrial city of Sabadell in the future. In order to cope with the increasing number of passengers, the operator of the line - the Catalan railway company Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC) - has ordered 15 new electric trains. The Spanish train manufacturer Stadler Rail Valencia.

Stadler, in turn, has commissioned Masats to build passenger doors. The company has been developing pneumatic and electric doors for public transport for years, including step ramps that adapt to different platform heights. Masats will produce 360 doors at its plant in Barcelona. And the same applies to every door: space is at a premium. Compactness is key. The doors should also be as durable and low-maintenance as possible so that the trains can be operated with maximum productivity.

Solution

"The supplier must be part of the solution"
The engineers therefore set out to find space-saving, durable and low-maintenance components for the door opening mechanisms. "We have high standards and expect the supplier to be part of the solution," says Alberto Lucena, Electrical Engineer at Masats. The engineers finally found what they were looking for in Cologne, at igus®, a specialist that has been developing a range of cables for use in permanently moving machine and automation components under the name chainflex® since 1989. A programme that has grown to over 1,350 different cables over the years. From this selection, the experts at Masats opted for control cables from the CF9.UL series.

The cables have a bending factor of 5xd, but are nevertheless robust and durable. Thanks to their special design. The stranded wires are made of bare copper wires with a particularly high bending strength. The cores are insulated with a mixture of thermoplastic elastomers (TPE), the cores are stranded in one layer with a short pitch length. "Thanks to this design, the control cable allows us to work with an extremely small bend radius of just 20 millimetres," says Lucena. "The cables are therefore ideal for our passenger doors, which are among the most space-saving systems on the market."

control cable can withstand several million double strokes

And the outer jacket of the CF9.UL igus® also uses a TPE compound here.
TPE is generally a very robust material. It is therefore used in our high-end cables for particularly demanding applications. The control cables of the CF9.UL series can withstand several million double strokes in the opening mechanisms of the passenger doors - without high maintenance costs.

They are not only durable, low-maintenance and space-saving, but also fulfil the high safety and certification standards that apply in the railway sector. We manufacture the TPE for the outer jacket with an added flame retardant as a flame-retardant version. The material is also resistant to oils, extreme temperatures of up to -35° Celsius and UV radiation.

The energy chains from the 05 series are just as robust compact and ensure that the control cable runs safely when the doors are opened and closed - over a stroke length of 700 millimetres per door. The e-chain® made of high-performance plastic has an inner height of just ten millimetres and an inner width of 64 mm. The Series 05 e-chain® is ideal for applications with low moving masses, for applications where space is at a premium. The e-chain® also enables fail-safe and long running. An advantage that has a positive effect on the train's operating costs.

Click here for CF9.UL

"The guarantee gives our customers a feeling of security"

There is another reason why the engineers at Masats opted for control cable and e-chain® from igus®. igus® operates a 3,800 square metre test laboratory in which experts test cable and e-chain® under real conditions in various forms of movement. The results are fed into an online service life calculator, which predicts how long cable and e-chain® will last in an application.