Investigation into the Use of Buried Fiber Optic Filament to Detect Trains and Broken Rail. High Speed Rail IDEA Program.

摘要

Railroads rely on electric track circuits to perform, among other things, the critical function of broken rail detection. However, track circuitry, which is expensive to maintain, does not detect a substantial percentage of rail breaks in which electrical continuity is maintained. Fiber optic sensing has great potential as a low-cost means of detecting broken rails. This research investigates the feasibility of using coherent optical time-domain reflectometry (C-OTDR) in concert with advanced signal processing techniques and neural networks in buried fiber optic filaments to detect and locate trains and the ballistic event characteristic of rails breaking under stress. An optical transmission through a continuous length of low-loss telecommunications-grade fiber buried within the right-of-way holds promise for providing an inexpensive, reliable alternative to conventional track circuitry for train presence and broken rail detection.