Withstanding Extreme Conditions - Stauff Clamps meet the requirements of Russian Railways

The Stauff Group have been suppliers to the rail industry for almost 35 years, the first project starting in the 1970s with Stauff UK supplying clamping components and systems to the Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company (MCCW), a former Birmingham, England based manufacturer of railway carriages and wagons. Original STAUFF clamps were used for trains on the Jubilee Line of London's underground railway system, which was officially opened on 30 April 1979, with passenger services operating from 1 May 1979.

Over the years, Stauff’s specialist clamp development and manufacturing capabilities have enabled the company to accommodate the increasing safety demands of the global rail industry, with a range of clamp body materials meeting all commonly used international fire protection and safety standards and regulations. All available STAUFF clamp body materials are capable of being moulded to any configuration, providing an industry solution for all pipe, tube, hose and cable support requirements, for both manufacturers and sub-contractors.

In February 2013, Stauff clamp bodies made of SAV0, a thermoplastic elastomer with V0 classified fire-protection capabilities according to UL 94 plastics flammability standard released by Underwriters Laboratories, were successfully tested in the Test Center for Railway Transport Vehicles in the Russian Federation.

The testing procedures included the inspection of clamping / holding forces of SAV0 clamp bodies of the Standard Series according to DIN 3015 - properly assembled with metal mounting hardware such as elongated weld plates, hexagon head bolts and cover plates - under the influence of mechanical and climatic factors. These were namely the exposure to vibration at regular and extreme ambient temperatures down to minus 55 degrees Celsius. All tests were performed according to GOST state standards 15150-69 and 30631-99.

In conclusion, no sliding or movement of pipelines related to their original position could be observed, and the clamp bodies maintained their full elasticity, which is an important contribution to efficient noise reduction and vibration damping in industrial applications.

The test results above have provided Stauff with the final technical approval to supply SAV0 clamp bodies and metal mounting hardware for the Desiro RUS project, an electric multiple unit passenger train developed by Siemens AG for Russian Railways (RŽD), which branded them Lastochka (Russian for "Little Swallow").

In mid-2013, a joint venture of Russian Sinara Group and German Siemens AG named Ural Locomotives has commenced production of a second batch of Lastochka trains at the Ural railway engineering plant located in Yekaterinburg, after the Siemens plant in Krefeld, Germany had fulfilled Russian Railways' initial orders for 54 of these units since April 2011.

While the first batch of trains had to be designed to be fully operational at ambient temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius for use in the Western / European part of the Russian Federation, the requirements for the trains built in Yekaterinburg were even higher: All components have to withstand extreme ambient temperatures down to minus 55 degrees Celsius while maintaining their original performance properties.

According to the contracts signed in 2011, 6 trains of the new Lastochka series manufactured at the Ural plant are scheduled to be supplied to RŽD by 2014, and another 30 trains by 2015. Overall, the contracts include the delivery of up to 1.200 passenger cars during the period from 2015 to 2020.

About STAUFF

Walter Stauffenberg GmbH & Co. KG was founded in the 1950s in Werdohl, in the German province of North Rhine-Westphalia, and was initially a contract turning shop. Today the company operates under the trade name STAUFF, developing, producing and marketing fluid technology components for use in plant construction and mechanical engineering. In the fields of tube, pipe and hose clamps, measuring technology and hydraulic filtration, STAUFF is one of the world’s leading organisations in a growing industrial segment.

Meanwhile, more than 1200 employees (12/2012) in 18 companies generate an annual turnover of more than EUR 190 million (12/2012) worldwide. Additional distribution subsidiaries have recently been opened in Ireland, Malaysia and Vietnam. Besides the group headquarters in Werdohl Ehrenfeld, the company has production and logistics facilities in the German cities of Plettenberg-Ohle and Neuenrade-Küntrop.

Walter Stauffenberg GmbH & Co. KG

P.O. Box 1745
58777 Werdohl
Im Ehrenfeld 4
58791 Werdohl
Germany

Mr Boris Mette
Public Relations / Marketing
E-Mail: b.mette@stauff.com
Tel.: +49 (0) 2392/ 916 154
Fax: +49 (0) 2392/ 916 270 154

This release was published on openPR.