Modeling of Ultrasonic Waves in Fractured Rails with an Explicit Approach

Abstract

Ultrasonic wave propagation in steel rails with explicit identification of flaws is numerically simulated. The problem is to detect a vertical crack in a railhead by applying ultrasonic nondestructive testing techniques. The propagation of elastic waves in the rail profile is simulated for various sizes and positions of the crack. It is shown that the finite-difference grid-characteristic method in the time domain and full-wave simulation can be used to analyze the effectiveness of rail flaw detection by applying ultrasonic nondestructive testing techniques. Full-wave simulation is also used to demonstrate the failure of the widely used echo-mirror method to detect flaws of certain types. It is shown that techniques for practical application of the ultrasonic delta method can be developed using full-wave supercomputer simulation. The study demonstrates a promising potential of geophysical methods as adapted to the analysis of ultrasonic nondestructive testing results.