Many vehicles include one or more wheel axles mounted below a rigid chassis. Each wheel axle generally comprises two wheels each mounted at one end of a shaft, and frequently one or more brake discs and/or a speed reducer. In particular, rail vehicle trucks, such as locomotives or cars, comprise such wheel axles.
However, axles of this type, due to their placement below the chassis of the truck, are sometimes damaged by impacts. Indeed, in order to simplify the structure of the vehicles and facilitate the inspection and maintenance of the associated wheel axles and braking systems, the wheel axles are generally left exposed, i.e., they are not protected by a box.
In particular, in the case of rail vehicles, stones coming from the ballast of the track are likely to damage the wheel axle if they are projected against the shaft during the movement of the train. Such impacts could cause the appearance of surface flaws, which may lead to cracking, or even breaking of the shaft. When such flaws are detected, it is therefore frequently necessary to replace the wheel axle.
A device for protecting a wheel axle of a rail vehicle is known from document EP 2,345,491 A1. The device includes two shells surrounding the shaft of the wheel axle to protect it from impacts. However, such a protection device is specific to the wheel axle on which it is mounted. Indeed, the length of the device must be adapted to the length of the segment of the shaft that the device must protect. If a device of this type is mounted on a segment having a length greater than the length of the segment for which the device was designed, part of the shaft will not be covered and will therefore still be able to be damaged. Thus, for shafts with different lengths, different protection devices must be provided.
Furthermore, in addition to wheels, a wheel axle generally includes brake discs. These elements are supported by a same shaft, and divide the shaft into several segments. Yet all of the segments of the shaft do not necessarily have the same length. It is therefore necessary to provide several types of protection devices with different sizes in order to effectively protect all of the segments of the axles of a fleet of rail vehicles. The variety of devices needed is further increased when the fleet is made up of vehicles with different types of wheel axles.