Innovative Trends in Railway Condition Monitoring

Abstract

Provision of functional safety of a railway track requires complementing the existing system of assessment of the railway track condition with the stress-strain behaviour assessment of the rail substructure, i.e. the assessment of the effect of track structure elasticity on the change of its geometric parameters during rolling stock passage over time. There is a lack of available theoretical and practical information about any pivotal changes in this field of science. The subject of the study is the in-situ elasticity indicators of a railway track and geometric monitoring indicators of railway structure condition or similar indicators obtained by numerical processing of data provided by the measuring systems of a track recording car and enabling the determination of change of irregularity parameters over time taking into account of the tonnage passed. The outcome of the investigation is the proposed approach to the development of an unparalleled diagnostic loading system which has been the missing part of the “puzzle” in the existing system of integrated assessment of the technical condition of a railway track.