CONDITION BASED MAINTENANCE OF RAILCAR ROLLER BEARINGS USING PREDICTIVE WAYSIDE ALERTS BASED ON ACOUSTIC BEARING DETECTOR MEASUREMENTS

摘要

The invention provides an alarm comprising: (i) a plurality of trackside sensors with known locations each sensor to measure at least one characteristic of each railcar wheelset as it passes that sensor's location; (ii) an information store to receive, store and later provide the railcar wheelset characteristics measured by the track-side sensors; (iii) a preset or predetermined trigger pattern of wheelset characteristics associated with wheelset failure or some other railcar condition requiring alarm or notification action; and (iv) a comparator to compare historical measured characteristics about a particular wheelset from the information store to the trigger pattern. The alarm is triggered responsive to a comparator indication of a suitable match between chronologically contiguous historical measured characteristics about a particular wheelset in the information store with the trigger pattern. The alarm may be used to guide preventive maintenance and logistics, railway and railcar safety, or operation of the railcar or way.