Real-Time Train Wheel Condition Monitoring by Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors

Abstract

Wheel defects on trains, such as flat wheels and out-of-roundness, inevitably jeopardize the safety of railway operations. Regular visual inspection and checking by experienced workers are the commonly adopted practice to identify wheel defects. However, the defects may not be spotted in time. Therefore, an automatic, remote-sensing, reliable, and accurate monitoring system for wheel condition is always desirable. The paper describes a real-time system to monitor wheel defects based on fiber Bragg grating sensors. Track strain response upon wheel-rail interaction is measured and processed to generate a condition index which directly reflects the wheel condition. This approach is verified by extensive field test, and the preliminary results show that this electromagneticimmune system provides an effective alternative for wheel defects detection. The system significantly increases the efficiency of maintenance management and reduces the cost for defects detection, and more importantly, avoids derailment timely.

Wheel Flat Detection in High-Speed Railway Systems Using Fiber Bragg Gratings

“…However, while this sensing technology is well-known and consolidated, it is also expensive, bulky and/or can be severely affected by electromagnetic interference. In opposition to these conventional solutions, Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors assure immunity to electromagnetic fields [7], and can be readily installed at low cost to measure important parameters for the railway engineer in the monitoring of wheel passage, such as the axle counting, axle load and wheel condition monitoring [8]- [10]. Field tests using trains in commercial operation at high speed (>200 km/h) have been recently reported [9], showing the excellent behavior of these strain sensors for axle counting and dynamic load estimation over a period exceeding one year.…”

Advanced Stochastic Modeling of Railway Track Irregularities

“…Sezer and Atalay [8] Pombo and Ambrosio [9] also presented a new contact model to include track irregularities for railway vehicle dynamic analysis. Wei et al [10] focused on monitoring the train wheel to evaluate the operation risk. Furthermore, researchers from several countries measured the PSD of their own countries' track irregularities, respectively, such as Germany, Great Britain, and the US [1].…”

Vital Sign Measurement Using Covered FBG Sensor Embedded into Knitted Fabric for Smart Textile

“…It has been applied in monitoring infrastructure state variables [17][18][19][20][21][22]. This system consists of an interrogator (Nagano Keiki co.…”