Brugarolas participates in the STEFAN project

In March last year, BRUGAROLAS began participating in a new R&D project within the CDTI’s CIEN strategic programme. It is the second project within this programme in which our company has participated.

The project is entitled STEFAN “Tribological solutions in the railway sector” and aims to reduce noise and tribological wear in metropolitan railway applications.

It is an ambitious 4-year R&D project (2020 to 2023) in which companies of recognised prestige in the railway world participate:

IDP, engineering company specialising in infrastructures, environment and architecture, which is the project coordinator.
ARCELOR MITTAL, steel manufacturer, world leader in the sector, which contributes its experience in the manufacture of railway rails and researches into their improvement.
NBI BEARINGS, manufacturer of bearings, which researches into the development of new bearings for the axle of train wheels.
GRUPO RIVI, manufacturer of lubrication systems, which will research into the development of smart lubrication systems, both on board the train and static on the tracks.
METRO SEVILLA, operator of the metro transportation system in the city of Seville, which will collaborate as a Scientific Committee in validating the components developed in the project.
METRO BARCELONA (TMB), operator of the metro transportation system in the city of Barcelona, which will collaborate as a Scientific Committee in validating the components developed in the project.
TEKNIKER, research centre, which will participate as a collaborating centre, providing technical support to the participating companies.
CIIM (UPV, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia), which will participate as a collaborating centre, providing technical support to the participating companies.

For our part, at BRUGAROLAS, SA, we are developing advanced greases for the wheel-track system that are biodegradable and have a low friction coefficient, noise-reducing lubricants and greases for train wheel bearings.

The basic objective of the project is to optimise the critical tribological systems in rail transport through the development of new components for the wheel-track and axle box bearing systems; materials, lubricants, track solutions, etc. The project has been proposed in a multidisciplinary dimension, encompassing not only tribology, but also sensor systems, smart maintenance, IoT (Internet of Things), etc.; all of which is implemented with the BIM (Building Information Modelling) methodology.