Measuring the performance of railway track through large-scale trackside sensor deployments
Measuring the performance of railway track through large-scale trackside sensor deployments
Railway track performance is inherently variable along its length, even on straight plain line track. Current condition monitoring relies on snapshot train borne measurements of track geometry, which may be used to plan route level maintenance. Although this provides a global record of current track quality, it is difficult to infer the local condition of the trackbed and local mechanisms of deterioration that may be occurring. A more important indicator of local trackbed condition may be the trackbed support stiffness as seen by a train. The trackbed support stiffness influences the performance of the track and its variation could potentially be used to predict changes in longer term performance with trafficking by means of vehicle/track interaction models and settlement equations. Trackside measurements may be obtained using track mounted sensors such as accelerometers, geophones, deflectometers, high-speed video cameras or strain gauges. These may be interpreted to determine the trackbed support stiffness. However, many measurement locations are required to determine the variation in trackbed stiffness along a useful length of track. This requires a significant increase in the scale of typical trackside monitoring deployments, potentially generating large volumes of data and requiring a degree of automation for data processing. The availability of small, inexpensive, standalone micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers means that it is now practicable to instrument hundreds of sleeper-ends in a single deployment, covering far greater lengths of track than would be viable with more established and expensive trackside monitoring approaches. This paper shows how MEMS have been used to investigate the performance of longer sections of track. Data processing techniques are described, and insights into the actual variation of track system performance are discussed.
Accelerometers, Including transition zones, Rail track substructures, Sleepers, Support modulus, Ties, Trackbed stiffness, Transportation geodynamics
731-741
Milne, David
6b321a45-c19a-4243-b562-517a69e5affc
Le Pen, Louis
4a38e256-d113-4bba-b0d4-32d41995928a
Watson, Geoff
a7b86a0a-9a2c-44d2-99ed-a6c02b2a356d
Powrie, William
600c3f02-00f8-4486-ae4b-b4fc8ec77c3c
2022
Milne, David
6b321a45-c19a-4243-b562-517a69e5affc
Le Pen, Louis
4a38e256-d113-4bba-b0d4-32d41995928a
Watson, Geoff
a7b86a0a-9a2c-44d2-99ed-a6c02b2a356d
Powrie, William
600c3f02-00f8-4486-ae4b-b4fc8ec77c3c
Milne, David, Le Pen, Louis, Watson, Geoff and Powrie, William
(2022)
Measuring the performance of railway track through large-scale trackside sensor deployments.
Tutumluer, Erol, Nazarian, Soheil, Al-Qadi, Imad and Qamhia, Issam I. A.
(eds.)
In Advances in Transportation Geotechnics IV - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Transportation Geotechnics.
vol. 165,
Springer Cham.
.
(doi:10.1007/978-3-030-77234-5_60).
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
Abstract
Railway track performance is inherently variable along its length, even on straight plain line track. Current condition monitoring relies on snapshot train borne measurements of track geometry, which may be used to plan route level maintenance. Although this provides a global record of current track quality, it is difficult to infer the local condition of the trackbed and local mechanisms of deterioration that may be occurring. A more important indicator of local trackbed condition may be the trackbed support stiffness as seen by a train. The trackbed support stiffness influences the performance of the track and its variation could potentially be used to predict changes in longer term performance with trafficking by means of vehicle/track interaction models and settlement equations. Trackside measurements may be obtained using track mounted sensors such as accelerometers, geophones, deflectometers, high-speed video cameras or strain gauges. These may be interpreted to determine the trackbed support stiffness. However, many measurement locations are required to determine the variation in trackbed stiffness along a useful length of track. This requires a significant increase in the scale of typical trackside monitoring deployments, potentially generating large volumes of data and requiring a degree of automation for data processing. The availability of small, inexpensive, standalone micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers means that it is now practicable to instrument hundreds of sleeper-ends in a single deployment, covering far greater lengths of track than would be viable with more established and expensive trackside monitoring approaches. This paper shows how MEMS have been used to investigate the performance of longer sections of track. Data processing techniques are described, and insights into the actual variation of track system performance are discussed.
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Published date: 2022
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
Acknowledgements The research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the program grant Track to the Future (EP/M025276/1). This work would also not have been possible without the kind assistance given by staff from Network Rail and Network Rail High Speed and members of the infrastructure research group at the University of Southampton.
Funding Information:
The research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the program grant Track to the Future (EP/M025276/1). This work would also not have been possible without the kind assistance given by staff from Network Rail and Network Rail High Speed and members of the infrastructure research group at the University of Southampton.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Venue - Dates:
4th International Conference on Transportation Geotechnics, ICTG 2021, , Chicago, United States, 2021-05-23 - 2021-05-26
Keywords:
Accelerometers, Including transition zones, Rail track substructures, Sleepers, Support modulus, Ties, Trackbed stiffness, Transportation geodynamics
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 456153
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/456153
ISSN: 2366-2557
PURE UUID: bde92969-1088-46ee-b87f-1d661b41f2e5
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Date deposited: 26 Apr 2022 15:07
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:44
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Contributors
Editor:
Erol Tutumluer
Editor:
Soheil Nazarian
Editor:
Imad Al-Qadi
Editor:
Issam I. A. Qamhia
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