RAMS

RAMS

What´s RAMS?

RAMS is an acronym formed from the first letters of the words
- Reliability
- Availability 
- Maintainability and
- Safety 


EN 50126 describes and demonstrates RAMS for railway systems for every stage of the entire life cycle. Whereas numerous other acronyms are defined in the standard, the most important terms of RAMS for rails are described here briefly.

The reliabilty describes how often the system needs to be shut down due to failure of a component and the maintenance actions required. It is described by the total failure rate and the mean time between failure (MTBF) of the components. Both values depend on the quality and performance of the product at the actual loading conditions.

The availability is that part of time where the infrastructure can be used as planned and without any restrictions. The down time is due to planned and unplanned maintenance activities and describes also the maintainability.

Safety is still the highest criterion in railbound transportation. The impact on safety is described in hazard sheets that list the measures done by the manufacturer of the system component to prevent from safety critical events.

The main focus of voestalpine’s R&D activities is the development of high-performance rail grades that provide the best RAMS key figures possible. While RAMS covers technical and organisational elements, a life-cycle-cost analysis explains on the economic efficiency of our product.

RAMS

RAMS-Management

RAMS management is a systematic method to check relevant product properties in any phase of development.

A structured analysis is applied as a mandatory process in product development in order to guarantee excellent RAMS figures of the component during the entire life cycle. Especially for complex systems, RAMS management can also be implemented into the management system.

A RAMS analysis delivers key figures that describe the performance of the entire system including details of the different components. The method allows to identify the most critical components of the system, evaluate maintenance requirements and expected long-term performance. Components can be selected according to their RAMS key figures in order to guarantee the best long-term performance of the entire infrastructure.

Due to the fact that failure modes and failure probability depend strongly on the stresses and loads on the system components, the analysis reflects directly the unique characteristics of the particular system studied. As a logical consequence, it is not possible to generalize results of a RAMS analysis or to make simple cross-references from one analysis to another application.

voestalpine Schienen deals with the topics RAMS and LCC since 1997. Consequently, we can do a specific RAMS-analysis of the rail in your infrastructure. Our sister company VAE implemented RAMS-management in their management systems in order to guarantee that developments in switches and crossings lead consistently to improved RAMS-criteria.

Again, voestalpine is One Step Ahead.