Railway Track & Structures - February 2009 - (Page 25)

analyzed and then placed under a six-ton press to break open the defective area. According to Herzog, every sample it broke had a transverse ﬁssure located underneath some sort of surface condition, namely subsurface shelling. “As an added bonus to the under-shell detection of transverse ﬁssures, we started to ﬁnd small fractures in the extreme gauge corner. To verify the test results, a sample was obtained and brought back to our facility for analysis. What we found was a small transverse ﬁssure that had grown from a newly-developed shell. This was repeated for several samples with similar results, some with and without the shell, but all were small and located in the extreme gauge corner. We armed our operators with this information along with instructions on how to verify defects of this nature, since conventional methods were not reliable. Since then, defect detection of this size and nature are commonplace with our system,” said Troy Elbert, project manager at Herzog. In addition to the Stingray detection improvements, new acquisition hardware has been prototyped and is scheduled for veriﬁcation and software development this spring. According to Elbert, this is the beginning of a modular system that can be adapted to a number of uses, including new test vehicles and inventory rail/crossover testing. Elbert points out Herzog is developing a more intuitive and interactive GPSbased data review module to address the need for more-efﬁcient data review for internal quality controls and for customer needs. “With all the advances in technology, the biggest challenge in rail testing is the rail itself,” said Elbert. “Economic turndowns have had their effect on the rail industry and their budgets to replace wornout rail. Worn head proﬁles still make it very difﬁcult to accurately detect ﬁssures and cracks due to the absence of material for the sound to penetrate and perform the correct geometric functions. Extreme gauge face loss and head losses can detrimentally alter the sound path of the test instrument, possibly causing false positives and misinterpretation.” Elbert continued, saying second to worn rail, weather and rail-head surface contaminates such as dirt, grease and even heavy snow or frost present challenges. “Weather delay can seriously impact testing schedules, but another culprit of delay is vehicle down time, which is most prevalent in the winter months. One way Herzog combats this is to have several ‘spare’ vehicles strategically placed across our territories. This allows us to replace a vehicle that needs repair, usually within 24 hours or less. Secondly, Herzog also continues to increase the ﬂeet numbers and replaces older vehicles with newer models,” said Elbert. Herzog is working on revamping its training material and focusing on base corrosion testing. The company is also working with TTCI on the detection of cracks occurring in angle bars and supporting TTCI’s laser-based non-contact project. “We go to great lengths to make sure that our customers get the best service, the best quality and the best effort to meet and exceed their rail testing re- www.rtands.com Railway Track & Structures February 2009 25 http://www.rtands.com

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Railway Track and Structures - February 2009 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D Railroads Stepping Up Use of Technology to Locate Rail Flaws Rail Lubrication Realizing Great Potential M/W Challenges: Track Settlement at Bridge Approaches Supplier Profiles Products and Literature People Calendar Advertisers Index Sales Representatives Website Directory Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - February 2009

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