Comprehensive method for evaluating results of ultrasonic testing of parts and components of rolling stock when adjusting the sensitivity for different reflectors

Abstract

Operation of railway rolling stock is accompanied by high costs of maintaining its operating condition throughout the entire period of operation. To improve the operation efficiency of rolling stock, methods and diagnostics tools have been developed, which are used both in its manufacture and in carrying out maintenance and repairs, and as an independent technological process. Diagnostics allows to increase the availability factor and the probability of uptime of the rolling stock, reduce the complexity and cost of periodic maintenance of its nodes. The article proposes a new integrated method for estimating discontinuities in parts and units of railway rolling stock according to the amplitude — distance — diameter diagrams by the standardless method with the possibility of determining the type of discontinuity by the dual-frequency method of flaw-detection with a manual ultrasonic testing with a single-channel ultrasonic flaw detector. Developed method is most relevant in the control of cast parts of railway rolling stock, since castings can be equally likely to contain bulk (pores, shells, nonmetallic inclusions, etc.) and planar discontinuities (cracks of different origin; flocks; segregations that lead to violation continuity, etc.). Proposed method allows estimating the discontinuity by comparing the amplitude of the echo signal from it with the corresponding type of tuning reflector: if the discontinuity is planar as a result of using the two-frequency flaw-detection method, the comparison is carried out with the amplitude of the flat-bottomed cylindrical reflector; if the discontinuity is volumetric, then the comparison is made with the amplitude from the spherical reflector. The article describes the algorithm that was developed to automate the calculation of the parameters of the amplitude — distance — diameter diagram, the parameters of the use of the two-frequency method, and also the estimation of the detected discontinuities, and, based on it, the NDTRT-25 software that allows ensuring the convenience of the operator-diagnostician.