MPC
Project Details

Title:	The Feasibility of Promoting Local Rail Vibrations Using Electromechanical Impedance Method
Principal Investigators:	Xuan Zhu
University:	University of Utah
Status:	Active
Year:	2021
Grant #:	69A3551747108 (FAST Act)
Project #:	MPC-672
RiP #:	01787276
RH Display ID:	159623
Keywords:	buckling, defects, detection and identification systems, feasibility analysis, rail (railroads), thermal degradation, vibration

Abstract

The mission of this project is to serve the rail industry by improving infrastructure safety and reliability with minimized risks of internal rail defects and rail thermal buckling. The team will develop an electromechanical impedance (EMI) measurement system to promote local rail vibrations, which were recently found to be promising tools for both rail structural integrity inspection and RNT estimation.

The local rail vibrations are the vibrational modes that are easy to promote, highly localized, and immune from boundary conditions. The fundamental mechanism of this phenomenon is deeply rooted from guided wave propagation in rails. Previously, local rail vibrations were promoted by impulse excitation, such as impactor and pulse laser, which lack a control flexibility on input energy and frequency. The team proposes to investigate the usage of EMI method for a consistent local rail vibration promotion, and successfully conducted preliminary numerical simulation to prove its feasibility. The proposed mission will be accomplished by developing an innovative capability of consistent excitation and detection of local rail vibrations, and advancing the state-of-the-art of rail defect detection rail neutral temperature (RNT) measurement.

Project Word Files

• Show project Word files
  • Full Description (Word, 3455K)
  • UTC Project Information (Word, 23K)

  Note to project PIs: please use the Track Changes feature when editing the above Word file(s). Updated document(s) should be emailed to ndsu.ugpti@ndsu.edu.