Thursday, 13 March 2014

Common Kinds Of Rail Inspection Methods

By Gwen Lowe


Catastrophic rail failures are considered one of the main factors that facilitate most of the railway transportation accidents. In reference to a recent research that was conducted to evaluate matters associated with railway transportation safety, one of the main causes of these failures is poor railway maintenance. However, people have developed different rail inspection technologies to aid reduce such problems.

The use of high-tech ultrasound devices is among the main methods that aid in detecting flaws in rails. The devices work by passing on short ultrasonic pulse waves with center frequencies of less than one to fifteen MHz to the rails that are then send back into the device in form of an interface of the fault. The results would be displayed on the device in form of an amplitude signal that represents both the distance and the intensity of the received waves.

Using self-induced eddy currents is another common technique used to examine railways for faults. The process entails disbursing eddy currents to metal surfaces that would also create a magnetic field. Normally, the electrical conductivity strength of these metals is dependent on the effectiveness of the magnetic area. Lower conductivity within the rails means the rails have problems that would aid in ensuring the appropriate measures are taken.

Radiography technology also plays a great role when inspecting rails for faults. This works in such a way that electromagnetic waves like x-rays would be transmitted into the interior of certain rails at very high frequencies. The waves would then come out in image form of the interior structure of such materials where a high-tech devices would be used to read the image details to determine whether there are faults.

The use of magnetic particle inspection is also common. This practice is majored at detecting subsurface and surface discontinuities in ferromagnetic materials like cobalt, nickel and iron. It works by inducing a magnetic flux to the surface of metals. If the metal has some faults, the magnetic flux would leak since air cannot hold the same magnetic field per volume like metals.

Railway inspection cars are installed with the suitable technologies and devices used to check rails for flaws. These cars come with probes and transducers, which are mainly designed, to aid in detecting mileage and other problems associated with railway sight. Many of these cars are designed to move at speeds higher than forty-eight kilometers an hour.

Another common way to detect faults on rails is by use of electromagnetic acoustic transducers. These are designed to work by passing electromagnet waves on conductors, which would then create certain waves. The obtained waves would be then read through certain devices to check for faults.

Each time people aboard a train, their desire is to reach their destination safe. However, sometimes this do not turn as expected especially when the rails where such trains pass through are not poorly conditioned. In order to reduce these problems, people have researched various methods for inspecting rails, which aid in detecting flaws on time to ensure the appropriate measures are taken.




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