Hand-Held Wheel Crack Detection Device. High Speed rail IDEA Project;Final rept. Aug 02-Mar 04

摘要

The inability to accurately and reliably determine the condition of a railway wheel leads to a number of negative consequences, ranging from time and effort wasted servicing wheels that do not need it (either because they were actually good, or because they are too flawed to return to service) to accidents caused by flawed wheels. Current ultrasonic inspection technologies have a number of key flaws mostly due to their need for a liquid or gel couplant and for fixed-location power sources. International Electronic Machines Corp. (IEM), having produced a promising conceptual demonstration, developed a prototype for an EMAT (electromagnetic acoustic transduction) based Portable Wheel Flaw Detection Gauge. The resulting prototype demonstrated the ability to reliably, repeatably, and accurately determine the condition of a railway wheel's tread or flange with a portable, rugged device, with the potential to do the same to other wheel components. During this project IEM created designs for signal pulsers, preamplifiers, power supplies, sensor heads, and many other necessary components, as well as incorporating multiple signal analysis algorithms, an expert system to identify types of flaws, and a graphic user interface.