Guided wave inspection and monitoring of railway track

Abstract

Cost-effective NDE of the vast length of ageing railway track around the world remains challenge for the community. Since continuously welded railway lines may be thought of as one-dimensional elastic waveguides, they are natural candidates for guided wave ultrasound, which offers the potential to interrogate a large length of rail from a single position. Continuously welded rail is installed in tension but temperature changes can result in rail buckling if the tension is insufficient or fatigue cracks and ultimately rail breaks if the tension is excessive. Guided waves have been proposed as a means of detecting the axial stress in rails to prevent buckling and also as a means of detecting complete breakage and cracks prior to breakage. This presentation will provide an overview of some of the approaches proposed for developing non-destructive inspection and monitoring systems and the modelling techniques used to support these.