Статті в журналах з теми "Railroad cars Wheels Defects"

Shattered rim cracking, propagation of a subsurface crack parallel to the tread surface, is one of the dominant railroad wheel failure types observed in North America. This crack initiation and propagation life depends on several factors, such as wheel rim thickness, wheel load, residual stresses in the rim, and the size and location of material defects in the rim. This article investigates the effect of the above-mentioned parameters on shattered rim cracking, using finite element analysis and fracture mechanics. This cracking is modelled using a three-dimensional, multiresolution, elastic–plastic finite element model of a railroad wheel. Material defects are modelled as mathematically sharp cracks. Rolling contact loading is simulated by applying the wheel load on the tread surface over a Hertzian contact area. The equivalent stress intensity factor ranges at the subsurface crack tips are estimated using uni-modal stress intensity factors obtained from the finite element analysis and a mixed-mode crack growth model. The residual stress and wheel wear effects are also included in modelling shattered rim cracking. The analysis results show that the sensitive depth below the tread surface for shattered rim cracking ranges from 19.05 to 22.23 mm, which is in good agreement with field observations. The relationship of the equivalent stress intensity factor (Δ K eq) at the crack tip to the load magnitude is observed to be approximately linear. The analysis results show that the equivalent stress intensity factor (Δ K eq) at the crack tip depends significantly on the residual stress state in the wheel. Consideration of as-manufactured residual stresses decreases the Δ K eq at the crack tip by about 40 per cent compared to that of no residual stress state, whereas consideration of service-induced residual stresses increases the Δ K eq at the crack tip by about 50 per cent compared to that of as-manufactured residual stress state. In summary, the methodology developed in this article can help to predict whether a shattered rim crack will propagate for a given set of parameters, such as load magnitude, rim thickness, crack size, crack location, and residual stress state.

The paper presents the results of the analysis of surface defects and faults of freight car wheels caused by frictional interaction with composite brake pads. It is established that the main influence on the thermomechanical behavior of freight car wheels is caused by thermal loads that occur during braking. In cases of thermal overloads, which arise mainly as a result of prolonged braking, the generation of stresses and deformations occurs, the consequences of which are the appearance of high-temperature local defects on the rolling surface of freight car wheels. These defects negatively affect the safety of trains and significantly increase the operating costs of railway transport. To determine the thermal stress state of the freight car wheel during braking, its calculation was carried out. As a calculation method, the finite element method was used, which is implemented in the SolidWorks Simulation software package. The temperature effect on the wheel during braking is determined to be permissible from the point of view of ensuring the strength of the wheel. The conducted research will contribute to the creation of recommendations for managing the temperature effect on the wheel, as well as improving the safety of trains and significantly reducing operating costs in railway transport.

The majority of catastrophic wheelset failures are caused by surface opening fatigue cracks in either the wheel tread or wheel inner. Since failures in railway wheelsets can cause disasters, regular inspections to check for defects in wheels and axles are mandatory. Currently, ultrasonic testing, acoustic emissions, and the eddy current testing method are regularly used to check railway wheelsets in service. Yet, in many cases, despite surface and subsurface defects of the railroad wheels developing, the defects are not clearly detected by the conventional non-destructive inspection system. In the present study, a new technique was applied to the detection of surface and subsurface defects in railway wheel material. The results indicate that the technique can detect surface and subsurface defects of railway wheel specimens using the distribution of the alternating current (AC) electromagnetic field. In the wheelset cases presented, surface cracks with depths of 0.5 mm could be detected using this method.

Abstract One of the methods for detecting defects in the rolling surface of the wheels of freight cars is to measure the deformations of the rail under the passing train. The method is based on the analysis of a strain gauge signal. The main task of the strain gauge signal analysis is the selection of informative components and the removal (filtering) of interference. The paper presents methods of filtering diagnostic signals of strain gauge control and the selection of informative components. The useful signal component can be used to measure the mass of cars, to determine the dynamic load on the rails and to detect defects in the rolling surface of the wheels. The method of adaptive Kalman filtering and linear convolution are proposed as signal processing tools. Based on these algorithms, a software module based on the.NET Framework has been developed using the C# programming language. The algorithms were tested on the signals received when the train was moving along the active section of the track, with a strain gauge control system located on it. The computational complexity and speed of the algorithms are assessed, and the possibility of their further application in the autonomous mode of the system is investigated. The results show that the use of the Kalman filtering algorithm provides a significant performance advantage over the linear convolution algorithm.

This paper reports the results of an experiment to evaluate the isometric wheel turning strength of 12 male and 12 female subjects using four different wheel designs. Three of the wheels investigated were new designs developed specifically for this study, while the fourth was a wheel currently used on many railroad car hand brakes. The three new designs considered were a cylindrical tube (4.3 cm in diameter), a cylindrical tube (2.5 cm in diameter) with spheres mounted along the edge, and a circular zig-zag design. Strength data were collected using a mock-up of the ladder and platform arrangement found on most railroad hopper and box cars. The task simulated the final tightening exertion required to secure railroad car hand brakes. Strength capabilities were measured using two methods: 1) a three second average during a six-second trial; 2) the peak reached on a separate trial in which subjects did not sustain an exertion. Results showed that the torque generated by the subjects was highest for the zig-zag design, followed in order by the wheel with the spheres, the cylindrical wheel, and the standard wheel; average torque values were 191 Nm, 147 Nm, 132 Nm, and 95 Nm, respectively. The average strength values (three-second average) for six-second maximum exertions produced lower average torque values (122 Nm) than the ramp to maximum exertion (161 Nm).

Rail plays a key role in the transportation of hazardous materials (hazmat). Improving railroad hazmat transportation safety is a high priority for both industry and government. Many severe railroad hazmat release incidents occur because of train accidents. The Federal Railroad Administration identifies over 300 accident causes, including infrastructure defects, rolling stock failures, human factors, and other causes. Understanding how hazmat transportation risk varies with accident cause is a key step in identifying, developing, evaluating, and prioritizing cost-justified accident prevention strategies, thereby mitigating hazmat transportation risk. The objective of this paper is to develop an integrated, generalized risk analysis methodology that can estimate accident-cause-specific hazmat transportation risk, accounting for various train and track characteristics, such as train length, speed, point of derailment, the number and placement of tank cars in a train, tank car safety design, and population density along rail lines. Using the two major causes of accidents on freight railroads—broken rails and track geometry defects—as an example, this paper demonstrates a step-by-step analytical procedure and decision support tool to assess how accident frequency, severity, and hazmat transportation risk vary by accident cause. The research method can be adapted for risk analysis at corridor- or network-level accounting for other accident causes.

Abstract The results of research on determining the parameters and circuit solutions of traction drives of funicular cars are presented in this paper. As a result of the research, it has been revealed that the funiculars, the bodies of which have an articulated joint, possess the greatest advantages. It is effectually to use three-phase AC machines with permanent magnets as traction electric motors. The mechanical part of the drive must contain a speed transformer with a gear rack-wheel type gearing. The wheels of the running gears perform the function of holding the car on the track structure. The traction force is performed in a gearing, the rack of which is placed between the rails of the track structure. The given method for calculating the power of the drive motor made it possible without question to determine its dependence on the angle of inclination of the railroad bed.

The article describes possibilities of phased array flaw detectors application for testing of railway transport units, such as wheel set axles, all-rolled wheels, solebars of freight cars. The task was to reproduce the standard testing procedures using phased array flaw detectors and demonstrate their advantages in visibility, efficiency, repeatability, results validity. Unfortunately, one of the main advantages of phased array flaw detectors, namely – a possibility to control the focusing depth – are lost while testing of large scale objects. Sector scanning technique with the phased array flaw detectors OmniScan and Isonic 2010 in the minimum configuration was used for the research. In the all cases acoustical images of the following reflectors were obtained within the range of selected angles: saw-cuts in axles, spot-drillings and saw-cuts in wheels, side drilled holes and natural defects in solebars. The Multi Group software (Isonic 2000) at testing of wheel set axles has enabled the testing schemes to be realized with one prism and one phased array instead of several classical piezoelectric transducers. Circumferential testing of all-rolled wheels from internal lateral surface under the roll surface level has allowed transverse cracks and flange embedded defects to be detected. Solebar testing has been more complicated because of a form and irregularity of scanning surface, necessity of its cleaning and a complex profile of back surface. Nevertheless the usage of phased array flaw detectors has made it possible to identify the back surface profile. Application of phased arrays substantially increases testing efficiency and improves visibility of obtained results.

One of the most important safety-related tasks in the rail industry is an early detection of defective rolling stock components. Railway wheels and wheel bearings are the two components prone to damages due to their interactions with brakes and railway track, which makes them a high priority when the rail industry investigates improvements in the current detection processes. One of the specific wheel defects is a flat wheel, which is often caused by a sliding wheel during a heavy braking application. The main contribution of this paper is the development of a computer vision method for automatically detecting the sliding wheels from images taken by wayside thermal cameras. As a byproduct, the process will also include a method for detecting hot bearings from the same images. We first discuss our automatic detection and segmentation method, which identifies the wheel and bearing portion of the image. Then, we develop a method, using histogram of oriented gradients to extract the features of these regions. These feature descriptors are later employed by support vector machine to build a fast classifier with a good detection rate, which can detect abnormalities in the wheel. At the end, we train our algorithm using simulated images of sliding wheels and test it on several thermal images collected in a revenue service by the Union Pacific Railroad in North America.

The algorithm is proposed for the automated control of displacement of the load overall center of gravity relative to transversal and/or longitudinal planes of symmetry of the car during railway transportation and decision-making about availability of commercial damages upon results of the car wheel weighting under way by the weighting equipment in cluded in the set of equipment of the systems of the automated commercial visual inspection of trains and cars. The baseline data for calculations includes results of the car wheel weighting and relative error of measurement of the loads with scale set during certification, and the car container weight accepted according to the data of the car in the Automated database of the freight car fleet of JSC “RZD”. Algorithm of the automated control of each type of displacement includes calculation of the actual displacement of the overall load center of gravity in the car, minimax assessment of the calculated value with regard to the error of determination of the parameters values used for calculation, and the conditions of decision-making about availability of commercial fault. Algorithm of static modeling of the bogie wheels loads on the rail is presented, in which the probabilities of excess of the regulatory maximum allowable value by the actual displacement are determined by the Monte Carlo method (loads of eight wheels are randomly broken out with assumption that distribution of their values is normal). Results of static modeling along with the analysis of the data from transportation documents and video image of the car with the freight allow the operator of the train and car visual commercial inspection station to make decision about necessity of the car field inspection for establishing the fact of commercial fault. Examples of calculation according to the proposed algorithm are provided for the case of control of displacement of the load overall center of gravity relative to the transversal plane of the car symmetry, including comparison with calculations without taking into account the errors. Proposed algorithm can be used in the automated train and car commercial inspection system under way during railway transportation as the element of the digital intelligent technology of commercial inspection being developed in the JSC “RZD”.

The Aim of the paper is to compare the UDP-2001SM installation for vibration diagnostics of bearings of freight, refrigerator and passenger car wheels and the OMSD-02 mechanism diagnostics system that since recently has been used in the Belarusian Railway.Methods. By way of analysis of the UDP-2001SM vibration diagnostics installation and the OMSD-02 mechanism diagnostics system, the authors considered the list of identifiable defects, method for defining threshold values (reference levels) of vibroacoustic pulses and noises for the criteria of “faulty” and “good”, statistical data for rejected axleboxes of freight and passenger car wheelsets in respect to the overall number of conducted measurements, the experience of operation in various car shops of the Belarusian Railway. Results. The paper describes the process of vibration diagnostics of wheelset bearings of freight and passenger cars using the case of stationary acquisition of vibroacoustic signals from acoustic plates that interact with the diagnosed axlebox. The authors present the diagrams of the UDP-2001SM installation and OMSD-02 system, as well as the defects of bearings that are to be identified using the above diagnostics equipment. Conclusion. The paper showed the advantages and disadvantages of the above diagnostics systems based on the experience of their application in a number of car shops of the Belarusian Railway.

The paper presents the results of comparison of quality indices of brake shoes for railroad rolling stock made of synthetic cast iron smelted in induction furnaces and of composite material which is a vulcanized mixture of rubber and different fillers. Disclosed are the disadvantages of composite brake pads. Defects of the working surface of the railway rolling stock wheels rolling surface caused by the application of composite brake pads made of rubber-asbestos or rubber-asbestos mixture are shown. Parameters of C, Si, Mn, P, S content and carbon equivalent distribution in cast iron used for the production of «M» type brake shoes according to GOST 30249-97 are analysed. It is established that the hardness and fracture strength of pads do not correlate with the content of chemical elements in cast iron and its carbon equivalent. The ranges of C, Si, Mn, P, S distributions in the specified purpose cast iron are much narrower than the allowable limits of these elements specified in GOST 30249–97. Suggestions for improving the standards are given.

Currently, the wheel flange limiting wear is the main reason of the railroad wheels trueing. In order to enhance the wear resistance of the wheels to the required level, composition of their surface shall be changed, which is proposed to do by the method of laser surface modification introducing spherical particles of tungsten monocarbide with diameter from 50 to 150 μm. It was found out that introduction of the said particles into steel, which composition corresponds to grade 2 as per GOST 398-2010, results in reduction of microhardness of matrix metal formed on the composite layer surface as long as the content of tungsten monocarbide particles is increased. This phenomenon shall be probably connected with the change of chemical composition and stress-strain state of metal. Examination of wear resistance using roller samples demonstrated that growth of the volumetric fraction of reinforcing particles significantly increases the wear resistance. Laser heat processing of the surface without introducing the particles results in the wear resistance increase too. Wear and tear of the counter rollers cut from the rail operated in pair with the reinforced rollers cut from the tread band is less than in the pair with untreated rollers. Introduction of reinforcing particles is much more important than matrix hardening for increasing the wear resistance. It is demonstrated that cross-crack defects can be formed in modified layers, which quantity depends on the volumetric fraction of reinforcing particles. When content of tungsten monocarbide is less than 10%, cracks are not observed. According to the totality of properties, the best content of reinforcing particles shall amount from 8 to 10% of the volume.

Analysis of operational data for defective and highly defective rails showed that up to 25 % is the contact-fatigue defects. In connection with the development of heavy haul traffic on the Russian railways, it is relevant to determine the influence of cars with increased axial loads of 25 and 27 tf on the contact fatigue life of rails. The solution of this problem is set forth in this article. The Brown-Miller model of multi-axial fatigue was used in the calculation. This model is integrated into the Fatigue software system, which is tied to the Marc calculation system through Pat-ran. Since under operating conditions the wheel moves (rolls) along the rail on meandering trajectory, in computer modeling weight coefficients were taken into account that characterize the percentage of wheels in the cross-sectional areas of the rail. Calculations of contact fatigue life took into account the variability of vertical loads from the impact on the track of trains formed from innovative open cars with axial loads of 23.5, 25 and 27 tf under operating conditions, loaded with real loading blocks. According to the analysis of calculated data with an increase in axial loads from 23.5 to 25 tf, it is necessary to expect a decrease in the service life of rails in contact fatigue resistance by 19 %, with a further increase in axle loads of up to 27 tf per 32 %. Considering that the share of freight cars with axial loads of 25 tf does not exceed 15...20 %, then on the routes of its use the service life of rails should be expected to decrease by 3...4 %. The method proposed by the authors for predicting the contact fatigue life of rails with increasing axial loads is advisable to improve in part of the experimental determination of the fatigue and strength characteristics of rail steel from the degree of hardening of the rolling surface, its probabilistic properties and the use of the integral distribution law for vertical forces, taking into account the structure of the freight traffic passing through the section. The work was carried out according to the RFBR project 17-20 01088.

The article reviews a preventive maintenance system for repairs, the main disadvantage of which is that it is essentially an open system of technical control that does not take into account objective assessment of rolling stock «as it is». The objective of the study was to review and summarize the existing researches and to word the proposals to develop the system of rolling stock maintenance. Based on the analysis of the researches in that field it is proposed to reduce material and labor costs for maintenance of cars by making the system of technical diagnostics closed. As a feedback, it is advisable to use an automatic test diagnostic control system that detects car defects while the train is running. It will significantly reduce the number of manual operations for inspecting rolling stock in the arrival parks of sorting stations and automate decision-making on possibility of subsequent operation of controlled rolling stock based on its actual condition. A technique is proposed for evaluating the results of technical diagnostics of rolling stock in which probabilistic estimates are used, dividing the most significant defects of the controlled object into three classes according to the degree of their significance for operation safety. It has been established that Weibull distribution corresponds to fatigue defective phenomena, while Rayleigh distribution corresponds to wear phenomena with constant or periodic workload. To identify defective car wheels and axle boxes, a dynamic system is proposed, which includes: the controlled object which is a wheel or axle box, automatic test diagnostic equipment and a resolver for deciding on further operation of the identified defective car. The optimal equation of the separating function of «false alarm» and «acceptance» is obtained on the basis of the Bayes criterion, which minimizes the average risk of making a wrong decision.

Most of railroad freight cars use brake shoes directly applied onto the wheels. This system causes wheel heating, which in turn gives rise to thermal stresses and loss of mechanical strength. An alternate solution is a system of brake disks and pads, which would not heat the wheels, like disk brakes. Because temperature is one major factor affecting braking performance, a study of the viability of replacing shoe brakes by disk brakes must evaluate and compare the heating of wheels and disks. The present work evaluates the heating of disk-pad systems when used for braking freight cars in the same conditions regularly applied to shoe-wheel brakes. In addition, stop distance for both systems are evaluated for regular speeds of freight railroads. Preliminary numerical simulations were done to choose the critical brake condition and to check whether the expected temperatures would exceed the temperature limits, damaging the friction materials and systems. Following that, real scale tests were conducted in critical braking conditions for both types of brake systems. Dynamometer tests were performed in real scale at the Railroad Laboratory of the State University of Campinas, Brazil. Results showed that, as far as system heating is concerned, there is nothing to prevent the replacement of the current system by a disk-pad system. Besides, the stop distance for both systems is also in the recommended range.

Wheel profile is one of the most critical factors that governs the dynamic interaction between railcar wheels and the rail. This paper quantifies and analyzes 15,000 wheel profiles that were randomly selected from a dataset obtained from wayside wheel profile measurement systems from railcars that are in unrestricted interchange in the North American Class I railroad network. Mean dimensions for each of the four critical wheel tread parameters were as follows; 30.5 mm (1.202 in.) for flange height, 35.4 mm (1.395 in.) for flange thickness, 0.483 mm (0.019 in.) for hollow tread, and 37.8 mm (1.488 in.) for rim thickness. Further evaluation focused on the magnitude of hollow tread, one of the important factors that determines wheel rail contact location, contact patch size, and dynamic interaction of the railcar and track. Correlative analysis revealed that hollow tread is linearly related to flange height, flange thickness, and rim thickness. Given this relationship, we categorized wheel profile data into characteristic bins of wheel profiles, and a new classification system based on hollow tread was proposed that should be considered when designing track infrastructure components (e.g., turnout frogs). Combinations of parameters were derived and organized into five wheel-profile classification ranges, based on “most likely” to “least likely” profiles that might be encountered. For the five classifications (Type A to Type E), a range of hollow tread from 0 mm to 5 mm (interval of 1 mm) and corresponding mean values for the three other parameters were applied. This probabilistic analysis and classification of wheel profiles into categories enables better understanding of current North American wheel conditions. Additionally, these data and the proposed analysis method can be leveraged to further optimize wheel profiles and track components, identify relationships with rates of rail surface defects and track degradation, and prioritize maintenance.

What is a machine? As part of his answer to this, historian and philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford cites a classic definition: "a machine is a combination of resistant bodies so arranged that by their means the mechanical forces of nature can be compelled to do work accompanied by certain determinant motions" (Reuleaux [1876], qtd. in Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 9). Mumford's own definition is focussed on machines as part of a technological continuum between human body and automaton: Machines have developed out of a complex of non-organic agents for converting energy, for performing work, for enlarging the mechanical or sensory capacities of the human body, or for reducing to a mensurable order and regularity the processes of life. The automaton is the last step in a process that began with the use of one part or another of the human body as a tool. (9-10) The tool and the machine can be distinguished along this technological continuum, with the tool more dependent on "the skill and motive power of the operator", subject to "manipulation", and potentially more flexible in its uses, whereas the machine lends itself more to "automatic action" of a specialised kind. However, it is difficult to ultimately separate them, since the embodied skill of the tool-user becomes more mechanical and reflexive with practice (Technics and Civilisation 10), while the machine also evolves along increasingly organic lines (367), and there are common examples of hybrid machine-tools like the lathe or drill, which combine "the accuracy of the finest machine ... with the skilled attendance of the workman" (10). A powerfully attractive feature of the computer is that it is an effective hybrid of machine and tool: like a machine it performs many specialised functions at super-human speed and accuracy on command, but like a tool it is flexible and adaptable (through add-on software and plug-in peripherals) to a seemingly endless variety of users and uses. Fascinating Assemblages The automatic machine ... involves the notion of an external source of power, a more or less complicated inter-relation of parts, and a limited kind of activity. From the beginning the machine was a sort of minor organism, designed to perform a single set of functions. (Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 11) The autonomy of the machine is perhaps its most fascinating aspect. That the machine is an assemblage of parts and restricted functions -- a "minor organism" as Mumford puts it -- suggests to us a body. There is something ineluctably erotic about scenes of lubricated pistons moving in and out of cylinders, or greased gear wheels moving around each other, and a masturbatory energy seems to be involved in the machine that repetitively and by itself performs the same limited actions over and over and over. While there are parallels between masculine masturbation and machinic repetition, there are also associations with femininity. As Andreas Huyssen pointed out, the modern machine became associated with a dangerous female sexuality and took the place of the early moderns' untamed Mother Nature as the principal representative of non-human forces with autonomy and agency that could evade human control. But arguably, expressed fears of machinic autonomy are the flip side of a wish for it, arising from masculine reproductive fantasies that have been played out in technoscience by generations of fictional and real-life Frankensteins fanatically seeking to create artificial life in the form of technoscientific brainchildren (who are nevertheless often neglected and left to run wild at birth). At a conscious level, machines express what may be interpreted as anal-sadistic desires for order, regularity and control, but unconsciously there is an element of masochistic pleasure in being passive, in yielding up control to the machine, in letting it set the scene and determine the actions and roles for the humans as well as non-humans (Sofia, "Contested Zones", and "Mythic Machine" 44-8). Machinic Zeal What is the use of conquering nature if we fall a prey to nature in the form of unbridled men? What is the use of equipping mankind with mighty powers to move and build and communicate, if the final result of this secure food supply and this excellent organisation is to enthrone the morbid impulses of a thwarted humanity? (Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 366) With his emphasis on the social context and drives towards technology, Mumford (Technics and Civilisation 364-5) suggests that while some kinds of machines have existed for thousands of years, what we have come to think of as the mechanical age only arose with the widespread adoption of the machine as a way of securing order, regularity and calculability of physical and human resources, coupled with the ideological shift which made the machine into "a goal of desire" and an object of almost obsessive veneration from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century. Now, he said (writing first in the early 1930s) faith in the machine has been somewhat shaken, and it is no longer seen as "the paragon of progress" but as "merely a series of instruments" to be used when useful; yet despite this loss of faith the machine in capitalist contexts continues to be "over-worked, over-enlarged, over-exploited because of the possibility of making money out of it" (Technics and Civilisation 367). Almost seventy years after Mumford was writing, the obsessive zeal for the machine still has not completely disappeared, but has been displaced from giant smoke-puffing steel assemblages, whirling cogs and gearwheels, or the motors driving trains, cars and planes, and onto the silicon, plastic and light of computers (whose machineries of production and assembly are largely hidden off-shore to the bulk of users, thereby producing the illusion of "post-industrial" societies). The computer is now the paragon of progress and has become the "defining technology" of our age (Bolter), its place reinforced by an actively boosterist popular press (e.g. popular computing magazines; regular computer supplements in newspapers). Sociotechnical Not Posthuman Mumford continually makes the point that questions posed by/in technology are never answerable only technologically. It always comes down to human choices, and even when the results of these "are uncontrollable they are not external" to human culture: Choice manifests itself in society in small increments and moment-to-moment decisions as well as in loud dramatic struggles; and he who does not see choice in the development of the machine merely betrays his incapacity to observe cumulative effects until they are bunched together so closely that they seem completely external and impersonal. (Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 6) In a certain way Mumford's perspective anticipates actor-network theory, which looks at artefacts -- including machines -- as parts of sociotechnical networks that involve human decisions, including about the distribution of agency to non-humans. Even in the most automated machine, Mumford argues "there must intervene somewhere, at the beginning and end of the process ... the conscious participation of a human agent" (10). Actor-network studies of the development of scientific and technological artefacts aim in part to critique the sense of the external, impersonal or inevitable in scientific and technical 'progress' by insisting that "things might have been otherwise" (Bijker & Law 3), not just at the beginning and end, but all the way through the process of an artefact's development and use. The artefact is studied as a particular outcome of a set of decisions and performances made in the midst of contingencies affecting human and non-human actors with conflicting goals and contested powers within a dynamic sociotechnical network. Although actor-network theory is very interested in non-human agents, it does not, as do some recent participants in and theorists of cyberculture, celebrate the so-called post-human. There can be no agentic machines without there having been human competencies downloaded into them; there can be no technical order that is not also social and cultural. As Latour argues, the modernist work of purification has tried vainly to impose a separation between the social and technical, denying their mutual inextricability. From this Latourian perspective, the notion of the "post-human" is not, as it appears to be, post modern, but thoroughly modern. It carries through the quintessentially modernist project of denying after the fact the human agency and capacities that have been invested in producing hybrid artefacts which are then proclaimed as extra-human; it denies the cumulative effects of sociotechnical choices and instead represents the machinic imperative as somehow impersonal and external to human affairs. The notion of the posthuman can readily reinforce the pervasive popular cultural myths of technological inevitability and dominance, conveniently for those humans and corporations who actually do profit from decisions they make about developing and marketing machines of increasing autonomy, intelligence and subtlety. Machines and Provision The role of the machine has been overemphasised in histories of technology, according to Mumford. For aside from tools and machines which perform dynamic actions, there are technologies of containment and supply, which he categorizes as utensils (like baskets or pots), apparatus (such as dye vats, brick kilns), utilities (reservoirs, aqueducts, roads, buildings) and the modern power utility (railroad tracks, electric transmission lines). Some of the most effective adaptations of the environment came, not from the invention of machines, but from the equally admirable invention of utensils, apparatus, and utilities. ... But since people's attention is directed most easily to the noisier and more active parts of the environment, the role of the utility and the apparatus has been neglected ... both [tool and utensil] have played an enormous part in the development of the modern environment and at no stage in history can the two means of adaptation be split apart. Every technological complex includes both: not least our modern one. (Technics and Civilisation, 11-2). The development of various utensils and apparatus for storage (urns, granaries) and flow (irrigation, aqueducts) was essential for the emergence of settled agricultural communities in the neolithic period (Mumford, Technics and Human Development 140-1). As I explore in a related article (Sofia, "Container"), Mumford finds a prudish sexism in the relative neglect of technologies evocative of the female organs of storage, nutrition and transformation, compared with the overemphasis on technologies that are extensions of the muscular masculine body (Technics and Human Development, 140). However, the contrast between dynamic, noisy, active and autonomous machines, and passive, quiet, backgrounded containers cannot be sustained. For one the utensil even in its most basic form, has something machinic about it: a container can perform its function autonomously, without needing manipulation like a tool. Further, it is arguable that holding or containing is not simply a property of a shaped space, but a form of action in itself. Moreover in practice there are many hybrids of machine and utensil or utility, for example in domestic technologies like the food processor, a container with a machine-driven blade, or the washing machine, featuring a tub with mechanical agitation and rotary motion. Although Mumford is primarily interested in the machine, he observes that as modern "neotechnics" proceeds to develop ever more sophisticated machinery, so does it evolve more complex technologies of containment, as described in this passage which depicts both machines and utilities as active agents: Behind the façade [of the crisp lines of steel and glass that define the modern built environment] are rows and rows of machines, weaving cotton, transporting coal ... [etc.], machines with steel fingers and lean muscular arms, with perfect reflexes, sometimes even with electric eyes. Alongside them are the new utilities -- the coke oven, the transformer, the dye vats -- chemically cooperating with these mechanical processes, assembling new qualities in chemical compounds and materials. Every effective part in this whole environment represents an effort of the collective mind to widen the province of order and control and provision. (Technics and Civilisation, 356) Another way of getting the over-emphasised machine back into proportion is to look more closely at what it is used for, what purposes it serves. Mumford writes of the machine as part of the effort to produce "order and regularity" into the processes of life (10); to "widen the province of order and control and provision" (356) or to produce a "secure food supply and ... excellent organisation" (366). In other words, the machine is serving the goals typically associated with utensils, utilities and apparatus: smoothing out fluctuations in supply and distributing resources more evenly. Likewise Mumford suggests that in the back of developments of machine and tool is the effort to adapt by extending the body's powers and/or by altering the environment, so that, for example, instead of a physiological adaptation to cold through hair growth or hibernation, "there is an environmental adaptation, such as that made possible by the use of clothes and the erection of shelters" (10). These technologies are not machines, but container technologies, in the province of what philosopher of technology Don Ihde would call "background technics". We can think of the shift in emphasis here in relation to the example of road works. The large machines for bulldozing a path and laying down layers of road surface are very impressive in their size, power and technical capacity. But the road surface could not be laid down without there being technologies (including hybrids of machine and container, like the pick-up truck) for transporting, storing and mixing the materials used. And when it is done, the big machines lumber off elsewhere, and what we have before us is a road, a utility which facilitates orderly communication, transport and the supply of people and materials. In other words, these machines have served the goal of provisioning. The machine can enthral us with its autonomy, its alterity, its thingness, but as Heidegger has claimed, even such a powerful and seemingly stand-alone machine as a plane on a runway ready for take-off is ultimately just a "completely unautonomous" element when considered as part of a global system ordered "to ensure the possibility of transportation" (17). Like other modern machines, its own objectness and machinic resistance is dissolved as it becomes part of the "standing reserve", which can be understood as a macro-technology of provisioning through a matrix of mobilisable human and non-human resources. In the broader project of which this piece is a fragment, I want to investigate more closely the role and relative importance of machines compared to other kinds of equipment, especially for containment, supply or provisioning in contemporary technoculture, on the suspicion that it is apparatus and utilities rather than machines that define our contemporary lifeworld. References Bijker, Wiebe E., and John Law. General Introduction. Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Eds. Bijker and Law. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1992. Bolter, Jay David. "The Computer as a Defining Technology." Computers in the Human Context: Information Technology, Production, and People. Ed. Tom Forester. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Heidegger, Martin. "The Question Concerning Technology." The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Trans. William Lovitt. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. Andreas Huyssen. "The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang's Metropolis." New German Critique 24-25 (1982), 221-37. Also in Huyssen. After the Great Divide. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986. Ihde, Don. Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990. Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Trans. Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1993. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilisation. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1962 [1934]. ---. Technics and Human Development. New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1966. Sofia, Zoë. "Container Technologies." Hypatia, Spring 2000 (forthcoming). ---. "Contested Zones: Futurity and Technological Art." Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology 29.1 (1996): 59-66. ---. "The Mythic Machine: Gendered Irrationalities and Computer Culture." Education/Technology/Power: Educational Computing as a Social Practice. Eds. Hank Bromley and Michael W. Apple. Albany NY: SUNY, 1998. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Zoë Sofoulis. "Machinic Musings with Mumford." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.6 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9909/mumford.php>. Chicago style: Zoë Sofoulis, "Machinic Musings with Mumford," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 6 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9909/mumford.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Zoë Sofoulis. (1999) Machinic musings with Mumford. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(6). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9909/mumford.php> ([your date of access]).