Engineering consultancy Furrer+Frey will this week unveil its innovative composite masts for rail electrification, which could revolutionise the way that rail electrification is undertaken.
Development of the mast brought together public transport electrification engineers Furrer+Frey with teams at Cranfield, Southampton and Newcastle Universities and composite materials manufacturer, Prodrive, as well as rail technology developers, TruckTrain. The project was part funded by the Department for Transport (DfT) and Innovate UK through the First Of A Kind competition. The first composite masts have been created and tested at St Bride’s feeder station, just outside Newport in Wales.
Whereas a traditional steel mast of the same size weighs around 750kg, the composite masts are around 80kg, yet have the same strength. The reduction in weight is a significant boost towards productivity and reducing cost.
Furrer+Frey GB head of UK projects Noel Dolphin tells NCE: “If you’ve got a well-designed mast that needs smaller, lighter plant that uses less fuel, it can be done quicker so you’re more efficient.” However, this is just one factor. Dolphin explains: “The dead weight is just one small part of the load on a pile. It’s the weight, the wind on it, the weight of ice, the way the wires are hanging off – it’s a whole system. So we’ve designed a mast that’s not only lighter but has a lower wind resistance.”
The article really isn’t clear on the cost/benefit analysis here – how much cheaper are the composite masts compared to the steel masts (and insulators)? Sure if the installation cost is cheaper that’s great, but it says nothing about total cost.
They look a bit better than the H-beams, but they still look like crap. The railway doesn’t realise that the view is part of the product.
the illustration in the article doesn’t really make it clear what it looks like. This has better images. https://twitter.com/RailDaily/status/1512350262157004800?s=20&t=KRlqatRM7C9Rzm9Bz6AwWA
Frankly it’s just a pole!
Whether steel or composite, it’s not going to make much if any difference to the cost of an electrification scheme. In big infrastructure schemes like this, the cost of components can be almost, but not completely, neglected as a rounding point.
I suspect the green credentials of the composite might be more important.