The construction of SkyWay Centre as part of the Innovative Research Sharjah Emirate's Technology Park is a very large and complex project. It includes the construction of such large and significant infrastructural facilities as a loop turntable and a switch. These objects allow to change the direction of traffic flows, as well as to carry out the turnoff of vehicles to the parking and maintenance areas.
The need to develop our own design solutions was due to the difference of the SkyWay vehicles from the classic railroad and other transport systems. The design of the wheels and suspension dictates a number of features that should be taken into account in the development of infrastructure facilities.
An example of such an object is the switch on the reversal ring between the sagging and semi-rigid track lines. The work of this switch has not been previously demonstrated to the general public, as it has a technological use in the framework of the SkyWay technology testing and demonstration centre. It is used to mount vehicles on the road structure — this is its direct function. In addition, it allows you to observe the behavior of the structure in real-time use. The vehicles are taken to the exhibitions, for maintenance and development at the production site; are returned to the travel structure for testing, and the switch works in a sufficiently intensive mode and, most importantly, in any weather. Within the framework of the tasks and in order to save money, this design was developed as simple and reliable as possible, nevertheless, it allowed to test in practice the necessary engineering and technological solutions. The objects in the UAE will be more complex, as they should meet more requirements.
You will get to know more about all this and not only from the video interview with Alexey Mikhailovich Strizhenkov, the Head of the Design Bureau «Infrastructure Equipment» of CJSC « String Technologies»