[gdineshnathan]

We know that the Traction Motor is one of the most important equipment of an electric (diesel) locomotives which provides driving power to the wheel.

As to its importance, an important auxiliary electrical system associated to the traction motors are the blowers - is functionality is to force in compressed air
(sometimes cold water via cooling pipes too) to keep the temperature of the traction motors (or other electrical systems) 'ideal' during operation.

In an Indian WAP-4 class locomotive there are: - two Traction Motor Blower, two Silicon Rectifier Blower motor, two smoothing reactor blower, two Compressor Blower machines to control the generated heat.

In many countries, the blowers systems are not automatic and is under the control (toggle switches) of the engineer - main reason that as these are high energy systems switching all motors on own will cause high surge current to flow and damage the power system. Usually one (maybe more) toggle switches to turn ON/OFF the individual blower system.

When the blowers run the temperature of the machines are maintained ideally, under OFF state/failure, temperature starts raising and trips the circuit breaker for system safety.

My proposal is for a blower system functionality in OpenRails. Is it possible to have such a functionality? or is it already managed via scripting somehow already?

Some implementation perspective:

1. Toggle button(s) key binding to set the blower motor state blower_state = ON/OFF, sound trigger(s), CVF toggle(s).
2. A block in .eng file to manage RPM-Temperature or Current-Temperature or Voltage-Temperature characteristic curve.
3. blower_state = ON => maintain Auxillary_SystemTemperature within the characteristic curve (needs more technical understanding).
blower_state = OFF => step out of ideal curve region slowly, trip circuit breaker, wait for cool down and enable circuit breaker closure again.
4. Activity randomization for system failures.

Is this a meaningful proposal? Thanks and looking forward for discussions.

PS: Picture courtesy from this site.

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[darwins]

I don't know much about blowers, but I do know they tie in with sounds. On British electric locos I think they are automatic. You hear them when the train stops, the blowers continue to work for about 15 to 30 seconds before they shut off. Then they start again as soon is the throttle is moved.

[gdineshnathan]

Interesting!

Yes, you are right - its tied to the sounds. It could be that once the blowers are turned ON once after startup the computers on board take care of automatic shutting and turning ON automatically.
As to the types and number of blowers present, I guess a few are manually controlled (not sure on British locomotives), although I have seen videos of WAP4 class locomotives.

In station halts, before starting, the engineer manually pushes a blower toggle manual switch and we can hear multiple whining of the blower system coming live. I guess that during run it is controlled automatically by the onboard computers.

Interestingly I got to read a working manual for a crew operating an electric locomotive. In the shutdown procedure of a locomotive it read,

"..After a stop, the blowers for traction motors and transformer should be led to run for 15 minutes especially after long runs with heavy trains to cool the motors..."

[ErickC]

On a related note, the diesel engine model really could do with two more values: one to see what RPM the engine runs at in dynamic braking, and another to set what amperage causes the engine to rev up. Almost all diesel-electric locomotives with dynamic braking power up when the dynamic brake is in use to provide cooling air to the traction motors, since the blower speed is almost always directly proportional to engine RPM. I have been emulating this by swapping the idle clip for a cued sample with power up and power down in it, but it's clunky if one SMS is handling different models of the same basic engine with different speed ranges (e.g. 567D3 and 567D3A), and there are situations where it can be glitchy.

[Weter]

Hello, gdineshnathan.
As I'll compose a proper post here, look at this topic, where I already have approached to this problem. This will cover the visual-effects-part in addition to sound-effect one, mentioned by DarwinS earlier.

[gdineshnathan]

 ErickC, on 08 January 2021 - 02:34 PM, said:

On a related note, the diesel engine model really could do with two more values: one to see what RPM the engine runs at in dynamic braking, and another to set what amperage causes the engine to rev up. Almost all diesel-electric locomotives with dynamic braking power up when the dynamic brake is in use to provide cooling air to the traction motors, since the blower speed is almost always directly proportional to engine RPM. I have been emulating this by swapping the idle clip for a cued sample with power up and power down in it, but it's clunky if one SMS is handling different models of the same basic engine with different speed ranges (e.g. 567D3 and 567D3A), and there are situations where it can be glitchy.

Interesting to know that D-E traction have blowers RPM are based on more factors and I have done the same, emulation with cues at idle. I wish there were separate triggers to handle them.
To my knowledge, in electric locomotives blowers would run at a fixed RPM. Its power consuming due to large number of blower machines and engineer turns off during stopping or maybe during downhill runs etc.

[Weter]

The more efficient cooling allows the smaller-in size tractive-motors to give much more power, with no risk of isolation-meltdown.
So it's essential for weight and space-saving strategyes of locomotive-design.

Early diesels had direct transmission to all fans (fig. 5 & 17) small shunters inherit this:

https://s1.slide-share.ru/s_slide/af7083b0b77c589c0cc217dda27e7535/6fc00f22-93ef-4cd2-a94e-b8ac7edb536b.jpeg

Further, it's need to look separately to diesel's cooling system, as TM-blowers are usually remain being tied with krankshaft with only rpm-multiplier gearbox. The top of their evolution is ЦВС/CVS (Centralized cooling Air's-supply System) - the huge and very efficient, having variable performance, single blower for all purposes + efficient air-intake filters+ air ducts towards Generator, rectifier, tractive motors and other heat-sencitive equipment onboard (see TEP70, fig. 5 & 6)

https://www.sinref.ru/000_uchebniki/05300_transport_jd_teplovozi/102_teplovoz_tem7_melikdjdanov_1989/000/113.jpg
https://s1.slide-share.ru/s_slide/38ffc4e0e2b5c331385c46c122d96a19/01fdca9e-1618-467c-981f-d7f72d39ae32.jpeg

Or some separate fans could be propelled by individual AC-electric motors (fig. 29, 31, 38). As well as for diesel-cooling systems (fig.13)

https://www.dieselloc.ru/2te116/images/2te116_3.png
https://www.dieselloc.ru/2te116/images/2te116_4.png

by the way, all 4 of radiator-cooling fans can be operated separately (manual mode) or automatic.

This way, diesels of advanced design had hydraulic-variator type of fan propelling (fig.35), that was controlled according to cooling (water and/or oil) system's temperature automatically. So, the motor supplied energy and limited maximal possible rpm according to current throttle (diesel rpm setting), but that variator could reduse them, if there was no need for such intensive cooling. And the energy(=fuel) for fan rotating was saved that way.

https://www.dieselloc.ru/images/soviet-teplovozy-i-oborudovanie/soviet-teplovozy-i-oborudovanie-36.jpg

Despite that, there was hydro-static type transmission for using hi-pressure oil hoses instead of shafts to transfer energy to fans.
Don't sure, but this way, the fan speed could be rised above krankshaft;s speed if needed.

https://www.3dfab.ru/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/tep70bs_012.jpg
TBC...

[Weter]

WRT electro-haulers...
First, look here, than-here:
http://bourabai.ru/toe/train/vl80k2.gif
We can see up to 12 motor-fans(MB-designated on that scheme)

Due to that fact, that at early locomotives, every fan had its individual motor, You are right, all of them consumed large amount of power.
Have to add, that the motors were DC or low-voltage AC type, so they needed a machine power-converter, or phase-inverter (see ФР on scheme). They consumed up to 1/5 of total power, which the locomotive took from whire.
Turning it on had to be made without any load, and only then, all of that fans could be safely turned on, one-by-one.
Also, passing catenary-sectioning air-gaps requires power to be off too.

The driver had an instructions and his own opinion, when and which of fans has to be turned on or off.
The drivers have to take care of living fans on, or turn them to high-speed, during locomotive coasting for acceleratig of TM cooling.

Next step of evolution was 2-speed fans, which could change their speed from low to high, automatically or manual, according to Traction-motor's load and/or locomotive speed, or could be tied to controller-position (~40% throttle)

Years later, the problem of efficiency was resolved by reducing the amount of individual fans and supply them with power thru electronic power converters (aside smooth altering of motor-speed, they allow to control this system by computer), which can variate rpm of that fans, according with current locomotive's cooling-demands.

Another practice is supplying fans, blowing on DB-rheostats wiht dynamic-brake "free" power.
This way, they automatic follow the DB's load and take part on dissipating DB-power, consuming part of it by themselfs.
Applicable for both: diesel- and electro- locomotives.

TBC...

[gdineshnathan]

 Weter, on 08 January 2021 - 11:49 PM, said:

Hello, gdineshnathan.
As I'll compose a proper post here, look at this topic, where I already have approached to this problem. This will cover the visual-effects-part in addition to sound-effect one, mentioned by DarwinS earlier.

Hi Weter,
Thanks for the link. As to the vfx and the sound triggers, are there past threads to discuss the physics changes? I guess in the current OR setting we don't have 'temperature' as a measurable parameter for electric/diesel locomotives.

Looking forward for your post.

[gdineshnathan]

 Weter, on 09 January 2021 - 12:35 AM, said:

Or some separate fans could be propelled by AC-electric motors.

This way, diesels of advanced design had hydraulic-variator type of fan propelling, that was controlled according to cooling (water and/or oil) system's temperature automatically. So, the motor supplied energy and limited maximal possible rpm according to current throttle(diesel rpm setting), but that variator could reduse them, if there was no need for such intensive cooling. And the energy(=fuel) for fan rotating was saved that way.

As to this, do you know what cab controls were associated with the blower control system?