1.Introduction:
The first railways in India were built in 1853 and their subsequent continent-wide development saw the appearance of various private railway companies and state-owned railway systems. To enforce standardization and coordination between these sometimes-disparate systems, the Central Standard Office (CSO) was established in 1930 to prepare designs, standards and specifications.
However, before Indian independence in 1947, most of the design and manufacturing of rolling stock and infrastructure was entrusted to foreign consultants. With the subsequent phenomenal increase in the nation's industrial and economic activity and rising demand for railway transport, a
new organization called the Railway Testing and Research Centre (RTRC) was set up in 1952 at Lucknow to test and conduct applied research for development of railway rolling stock, permanent way etc. In 1957, the CSO and RTRC were integrated as the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) under the Ministry of Railways at Lucknow.
Functions
RDSO is the sole R&D organization of Indian Railways and functions as the technical advisor and consultant to the Indian Railway Board, regional railways and rolling stock works.
Basically, its activities involve:
• Development of new and improved designs
• Development and adoption of new technologies for use on Indian Railways
• Development of standards for materials and products especially needed by Indian Railways
• Technical investigation, statutory clearance, testing and provision of consulting services
• Inspection of critical and safety items for rolling stock, locomotives, signals, telecommunications equipment, and track
RDSO also offers international consultancy services on design, testing and inspection of railway equipment as well as surveys for construction of new lines. Consultancy services have been provided to various countries such as Iraq, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Zambia, Egypt, Nigeria,
Saudi Arabia, etc.
2.Quality Policy:
To develop safe, modern and cost effective Railway technology complying with Statutory and Regulatory requirements, through excellence in Research, Designs and Standards and Continual improvements in Quality Management System to cater to growing demand of passenger and freight traffic on the railways. QUALITY OBJECTIVES FOR THE YEAR 2008- 09:
QUALITY ASSURANCE Hitherto, the quality assurance function in respect of vendor approval and purchase inspection of these items including publication of vendor directories was being looked after by individual technical directorates of RDSO along with their normal functions of research, development and standardization.To impart greater thrust to quality assurance, Railway Board has approved the creation of a separate Quality Assurance Organisation at RDSO in Sept. 2002 for Technical disciplines i.e. Mechanical Engg. Including M&C, Civil Engg., S&T & Electrical Engg. Each headed by Executive Director under the overall charge of an HAG officer. With the creation of this Quality Assurance Organisation, focussed attention and close monitoring of vendor approval and purchase inspection activities is being given.
3.Infrastructure:
RDSO has a number of laboratories which are well equipped with research and testing facilities for development, testing and design evaluation of various railway related equipments and materials.Some of these are:
Air Brake Laboratory is equipped with facilities for simulating operation of air brakes on freight trains up to 192 wagons and 3 locomotives as also for simulation of passenger trains up to 30 coaches.
Brake Dynamometer Laboratory has facilities to develop and test brake friction materials for locomotives, coaches and wagons. A unique facility in India , this laboratory has also been used by R&D organisations of Ministry of Defence like DMRL, DRDL and HAL for indigenisation of brake pads for defence aircraft.
B&S Laboratory has a 6mx14m heavy/testing floor on which full scale models of beam (spans up to 10 m, slabs, columns, towers, shells and other components made of concrete, steel, brick etc can be tested under static, dynamic or pulsating loads. A high frequency ranging 250-700 cycles/min pulsator for the application of a pulsating loads varying from 2 to 20 tones and a maximum static load of 40 tonnnes on heavy duty testing floor. The Laboratory is equipped with? analogue strain indicator, multi channel dynamic strain recording system, switching & balancing units, acoustic emission equipment, data acquisition system etc. for recording various parameters.
Diesel Engine Development Laboratory has four test beds capable of testing diesel engines from 100 to 6000 HP with fully computerized systems for recording of over 128 test parameters at a time. This facility has already enabled RDSO to develop technologies for improving fuel efficiency, reliability and availability of diesel engines as well as to extract higher output from existing diesel engines. Fatigue Testing Laboratory for testing prototype locomotive and rolling stock bogies, springs and other railway equipments