ZWEIWEG International GmbH & Co. KG develops and manufactures special vehicles that can travel on roads and rails. They are usually based on lorries and equipped with rail undercarriages, and are used, for example, for cleaning, overhead line and track construction or tunnel rescue.
For the commissioning of a third metro line in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, such a cleaning vehicle was needed for both the track bed and the tunnels. The challenge: the tracks of the metro in Riyadh are not in gravel but slightly elevated in a concrete trough, and require a particularly flexible cleaning solution with movable cleaning arms.
For example, a large high-pressure unit with rotating nozzles for cleaning the tunnels is installed behind the driver's cabin and can be extended and moved. Furthermore, a suction arm at the rear of the vehicle must also be movable so that in can plunge deep into the concrete trough of the track bed. Finally, a construction of altogether eight arms arranged in the shape of a star, each equipped with five nozzle tips, had to be flexibly movable for tunnel cleaning.
For all these movable components, the manufacturer was looking for components that operate absolutely without lubrication maintenance, are as compact as possible and still allow a long reach when pushed out. In particular, the high back-pressure during cleaning with water required bearings that are extremely rigid and do therefore not yield. Even large amounts of dust and dirt in outdoor use should not cause any problems for the solution.