Continuous monitoring and evaluation of railway tracks: system description and assessment

Abstract

innovative and integrated approach to assess the performance and condition of railway tracks. This approach is also expected to contribute to identify the specific causes of some track performance degradation, namely those that are related to the characteristics of the layers and the geomaterials that compose the substructure of the track. A system prototype was developed and installed on board of a self-propelled railway maintenance vehicle. The system is designed to continuously evaluate the vertical stiffness of the track and to detect disturbances on the dynamic contact interface between the wheelsets and the rails, some of which can be related to defects on the tracks. The system is also able to post-process the acquired data. This paper includes an overall system description of the prototype implemented based on the discussed approach and the first experimental tests performed with said prototype, regarding the system assessment. These tests were performed on a railwayvtrack, adjacent to a maintenance yard. The track was instrumented with additional on-site equipment to serve as reference for thevprototype’s assessment. The data obtained from the preliminary tests suggest that the proposed approach is adequate in this context.