Failure Analysis on Abnormal Cracking of the Baffle in the Automatic Passing Neutral Section Sensor for High-Speed Trains

Due to its excellent performance, polyurethane rubber is often used as a protective baffle for the automatic passing neutral section sensor to protect the sensor from the impact of silt and stones, while the high-speed train is operating. However, this paper conducts case analysis of abnormal cracking of the sensor baffle used in high-speed trains. In fact, this kind of problem has happened several times, and the previous solution method was to replace the failed baffle. But such kind of method mainly treats the faults instead the root cause analysis, so it still brings the safety issue to the normal operation of the train. In order to avoid such potential accidents, this paper adopted a variety of material analysis methods to detect the properties of materials and analyzed the damaged area in detail by combining macroscopic and microscopic methods. Finally, the root cause of the failure was further confirmed by confirmatory experiment. Based on the above comprehensive analysis, a reasonable solution is proposed to avoid the recurrence of the accidents and provide an important basis for solving the complicated polyurethane rubber failure problem quickly, correctly and effectively.