A Practical Application of Ultrasonic Thermal Stress Monitoring in Continuous Welded Rails

摘要

A methodology designed to monitor thermally induced loads on continuous welded rails (CWR) is presented. The technique is based on the use of sub-surface longitudinal ultrasonic waves (l.c.r. waves) and, by means of a daily data elaboration, allows to obtain the value of the neutral temperature of the rail as a function of time. From such information an estimation of longitudinal stresses, to be used as a reference, can be derived. The methodology here presented has undergone a 2 years testing period, through the instrumentation of about 3 km of railway track. All acquired data have been remotely processed in a single control station.