The non-destructive testing methods adapted to railway vehicles permit timely repair or discarding of built-in parts, and, consequently, reliable operation. Rapid advances in testing equipment for railway vehicles make it possible to employ them in practice although purchasing options are very limited. Users, i.e. operators, shall have good knowledge of theory and practical experience in using these techniques. The paper focuses on the employment of ultrasonic testing methods developed for and adapted to testing of railway vehicles. For timely detection of initial cracks at vital parts such as king bolts, spring suspensions and particularly axles and shafts of bogies for locomotives and coaches, good testing equipment and software support shall be provided. This is a basis of quality testing and assessment of the state of vital parts of railway vehicles, which will eventually assure safe and reliable railway traffic. Recently ultrasonic testing has shown exceptional advances in apparatuses for measurement, storage, and processing of ultrasonic signals. The advances in equipment shall be accompanied by advances in software since this is the only way to provide adequate graphical representations and support in an analysis to result in reliable assessment of the state of vital parts of railway vehicles. Adequate software will allow checking of the state of individual vital parts between periodic checks, good statistical processing of the data obtained, and quality assessment of the momentary state of railway vehicles resulting in efficient and rational scheduling of periodic checks. Some recent approaches to testing of vital parts railway vehicles such as locomotives and coaches will be described.
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