Research on the measurement of the rail straightness based on the outer boundary support point model

Abstract

Rail straightness is an important index of the quality of large components of steel rails, and is of great significance for product quality testing in rail plants. At present, the measurement of straightness in rail factories still depends on the manual use of straightness rulers for measurement, which leads to low measurement speeds and precision. Therefore, we propose a non-contact measurement method based on the outer boundary support point model. Using laser profilers to measure the original curve of the rail straightness, the proposed straightness curve processing algorithm in this paper is used to obtain the median filter curve and calculate the maximum difference values. Results show excellent performance and indicate that the proposed method presents a better straightness measurement approach than traditional manual measurements using physical straightness rulers.