Experimental Study of the Potential Usage of Acoustic Emission to Railway Track Faults Detection

摘要

Estimating of the railway track mechanical integrity is very important for railway transport safety. Non-destructive methods are intensively investigated in order to find faults in railway lines in early stage for the purpose of decreasing the expenses for their elimination and for extending their lifetime. Advantages of acoustic emission point out the benefits of using this method for problem solving. It is partly the fact that it is a passive method which uses loading by train traffic thereby expenses to inspection are significantly smaller than in case of using active methods. Partly, due to this being a non-destructive method, it is possible to use it for repeated monitoring of identified cracks expansion. The activity of acoustic emission increases with the growth of damage extends. The paper shows how the initial investigation demonstrates the acoustic emission method can be used for railway track faults detection.