The National Railway Company of Belgium, NMBS, provides public rail transport services on behalf of the Belgian government. The company annually carries millions of travellers within and across Belgium’s borders. In winter, the network operator is required to deal with issues related to snow and ice. Radar system sensors used to switch rails are located under the carriages. Safety is at risk if these sensors are unable to operate correctly due to weather conditions. To prevent this, the network operator was considering adding an anti-freeze coating to protect against the build-up of ice. NMBS asked Sirris to perform these tests.
The experts have access to a large climatic test chamber, with a test set-up specially designed to take into account the build-up of ice at their Port of Antwerp facility. Two radar systems were installed, one with the coating and the other without, then sprayed with ice, to simulate the weather conditions the systems are exposed to as faithfully as possible.
The tests provided data on the effect of the anti-freeze coatings on the NMBS radar systems.
