Railway Track & Structures - October 2007 - (Page 21)

TTCI R&D Laser-based ultrasonic rail inspection system Researchers look to ultrasonic lasers to advance the science of rail inspection. T he Transportation Technology Center, Inc., and Tecnogamma SPA (from Italy) established a limited partnership to develop a noncontact ultrasonic laserbased rail inspection system in 2004 identified as U-Rail. The U-Rail prototype system has been developed and tested at the Rail Defect Test Facility (RDTF) at the Transportation Technology Center, Pueblo, Colo. The U-Rail system uses pulsed lasers to generate ultrasonic signals in the rail and air-coupled transducers to monitor the waves propagating through it. The system is capable of detecting railhead transverse defects (TD), horizontal and vertical split heads, shelling, head and web separation, split and piped web and base TDs. The inspection unit includes a rail position measurement system that tracks the rail during dynamic inspection and discerns obstacles over the rail base. An encoder and GPS are included in the system to provide precise correlation between signal acquisition and progressive inspection distance, providing an accurate location of the defects. Conventional dynamic rail inspection systems are currently limited to applying and receiving ultrasonic energy into the rail from the top surface of the railhead between the gauge and field sides of the rail. This limitation does not allow for complete inspection of the rail section such as the edge of the rail base or foot. The laser-based technology is unique in that it can apply ultrasonic energy to the rail at any location accessible to the laser beam, while ultrasonic waves traveling through the rail are received by the aircoupled transducers inside the measuring unit placed at approximately 2.5 inches from the rail running surface (top of the railhead). We expect that this laser-based inspection technology will increase flaw detection reliability by providing a more complete inspection of the entire rail section to include the head, web Figure 1 shows the rail area coverage for current and integrated configurations. and base, resulting in an increase in safety by lowering the risk of rail-related service failures and derailments. At present, the prototype provides rail integrity information, while operating the hi-rail vehicle up to 20 mph (32 km/h). Initial results of the evaluation tests confirm the functionality of the laser-based noncontact technology. The fully-automated data collection and the real-time signal interpretation improve rail inspection operations and make them faster and more reliable by providing inspection coverage of the entire rail section. Coverage and data processing Currently the U-Rail provides rail area inspection coverage of approximately 89 percent for the head, 80 perby Gregory Garcia, principal investigator and Semih Kalay, vice president research and development, TTCI, Dr. Donatella Cerniglia and Dr. Claudio Cosenza, Tecnogamma, SPA Railway Track & Structures October 2007 21 www.rtands.com http://www.aar.com http://www.rtands.com

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Railway Track & Structures - October 2007 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D Crossties by the Billions Provide Essentials for Full Support Modern Tools Manage Risk M/W Challenges: Better Management of Thermal Forces in CWR TTCI Celebrates 25 Years as Facility, 10 as Part of AAR Products and Literature People Calendar Sales Representatives Website Directory Advertisers Index Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - October 2007

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