Develop the 'brain' of high-speed rail
- By Xu Ying
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E-mail China Today, January 12, 2016
A hard nut to crack
In January, 2007, Chang led a seven-member work team in a two-month-long training program on train control systems at an Alstom factory in Italy. The team's major task was to learn the mechanisms of the train network control system and its interaction with various sub-systems.
However, Alstom did not include this into the training plan for the visiting Chinese engineers, despite it being stipulated in the contract the two sides signed.
"After several rounds of negotiation, we finally acquired the 3,000 pages of research materials that illustrated the mechanism of the train network control system, but it was in Italian," said Chang. It was the first time Chang had come into contact with the core technology of the world's most advanced MU train. But he first they had to tackle the problem of deciphering the Italian wording.
For confidentiality reasons, they were not allowed to hire translators. The seven Chinese technicians, who had never studied Italian before, armed themselves with an Italian-Chinese dictionary and cracked the toughest nut of their careers. It took them eight months to read all the materials.
On April 18, 2007, the CRH5 high-speed train that runs from Beijing to Harbin was formally operated. The train was named Hexie in Chinese, meaning harmony. Meanwhile, the country launched its sixth round of the "Speed-up" campaign and rolled out a new train timetable. The campaign raised the speed to 200-250 km/h on busy trunk lines. China's high-speed rail has since entered a new development phase.
After his time in Italy, Chang joined the testing team in the operation of the CRH5 train. An era of large-scale high-speed rail production thus dawned.
As far as Chang can recall, the production cycle for high-speed trains was quite tight. A design defect in the Alstom method and insufficient consideration of the operation environment in China caused a series of breakdowns in the initial period of the MU train's operation.
The train normally left Harbin at dawn and reached its final destination at 11 p.m. But that wasn't the end of Chang and his team's working day; they had to carry out maintenance and examination after each operation.
After eight months of analysis and experiment, Chang's team not only mastered the mechanisms of the CRH5 control system, but also ironed out the design defects and made their own suggestions for improvement.
The whole control network is made up of more than 1,000 different software programs. Technicians needed to design, develop and test each one and replace the foreign software with a local equivalent, one by one. They then had to conduct exhaustive tests, including static tests, above ground tests, and dynamic tests. It took a total of five years for Chang's team to finish all the development work.
Global ambition
In the spring of 2009, the CRH5 high-speed train between Beijing and Taiyuan went into operation. Chang continued to conduct research on the traveling train but was eventually hospitalized due to exhaustion.
That time was considered as a "sprint" period for China's rail transport development. Chang and his team broadened their vision to the whole country by developing a network system that was suitable for China's geographical conditions. They dealt with technical difficulties one by one and conducted corresponding experiments.
Changchun Railway Vehicles started to develop independently the CRH380CL train with a service speed of 380 km/h, the highest in the world at that time. From Chang's point of view, this project signaled a steady step forward in China's independent research and development.
By 2010, China's high-speed rail network had hit 8,358 km, with nearly 1,200 MU trains operating daily.
Amid this triumphant advance, the Wenzhou rail crash occurred on July 23, 2011, making high-speed rail, which was intended to be built into a national brand, a target of public criticism.
"At that time I was busy with after-sales service work in Beijing. I was shocked at the accident and felt very bad," Chang recalled. The public began by questioning the train control system, which meant that Chang was partially quoted, attacked, and even framed. However, the final investigation result showed that the major fault lay in the management.
Although Changchun Railway Vehicles was not held responsible for the accident, the company volunteered to obtain a safety integrity certificate for its train network control system, and adopted stricter standards.
A year later, on August 23, 2012, the train network control system independently developed by Changchun Railway Vehicles obtained the relevant European safety certification.
"Today, Chinese engineers are paying greater attention to safety and reliability than ever before in the development of high-speed rail systems. Therefore, all multiple-unit trains designed and produced in China feature an 'automatic safety control' mode, which means that if any failure occurs, the system automatically ensures the train's safety," Chang said.
Since 2012, China has implemented a strategy of going global with its high-speed rail and comprehensively replacing the major systems of high-speed trains to ensure they are all home produced.
Chang said that the domestically produced train network control system features improved self-check functions and is more convenient for use and maintenance. The software can be adjusted according to customers' needs and the cost for making the system is relatively low. These factors have enhanced the competitiveness of China-made railway vehicles.
By the end of November, 2013, the world's high-speed rail operating mileage, excluding China's contribution, stood at 11,605 km, about the same as the figure for China. Starting from zero, it took only 10 years for China to achieve half of the proportion of the world's total. Now, the train network control system is made domestically, rather than relying heavily on foreign technology.
However, intense international competition in the high-speed rail sector keeps Chang and his team members on their toes. They are currently working on developing industrial Ethernet, which features a significantly increased transmission capability, the transmission speed rising 1,000-fold, greatly boosting the rate of information transmission between trains.
"This technology is also at its initial stage in foreign countries. I hope China can seize the initiative in this regard through the joint efforts of our team," Chang said.
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