Insights towards Condition Monitoring of Fixed Railway Crossings

Abstract

Evaluation methods and field trial results in terms of geometry and loading of fixed railway crossings are proposed in this paper. Based on these experiences the fundamentals towards condition monitoring are created to allow predictive maintenance actions. For this, a fixed crossing has been instrumented with strain gauges and installed in track with mixed traffic. The strain gauge signals were recorded in irregular intervals to establish a database for the development of model based condition monitoring. A signal processing chain was developed that shall serve as base for continuous monitoring of crossing nose via strain measurements. To this end a data processing work flow is proposed that enables to monitor changes in the combined system of crossing geometry/ wear and bedding state.To quantify the geometry development of the crossing nose (due wear and plastic deformation) a laser based non-contacting measurement of the crossing geometry has been set up. 2D profiles recorded at predefined positions of the crossing enabled a 3D reconstruction of the crossing geometry. During 30 months in service the geometry of the crossing nose and adjacent regions has been recorded in 3 to 6 months intervals. The superposition of the corresponding 2D profiles and the 3D reconstruction allowed a quantitative measurement of the geometry changes during service.