Field Test Performance of Noncontact Ultrasonic Rail Inspection System
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Abstract
This paper presents the latest results from a noncontact ultrasonic rail inspection system developed at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) under the auspices of the Federal Railroad Administration. Noncontact rail probing is an attractive feature that could potentially allow for new possibilities. The UCSD system utilizes a focused air-coupled transmitter, symmetrically placed air-coupled receivers, and a real-time statistical algorithm to maximize true outliers (defects) and minimize false positives. Two field tests were conducted at the Rail Defect Test Facility of the Transportation Technology Center in Pueblo, Colorado, at test speeds from 1.6 to (1 to ). The results of these tests, evaluated in terms of probability of detection versus probability of false alarms (receiver operating characteristic curves) indicate a good detection performance at the speeds of 1.6 and , with a much poorer performance at the speeds of 16 and . Possible reasons for the performance degradation at the higher speeds are discussed, and future work aimed at mitigating these issues is proposed.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration under Grant FR-RRD-0027-11-01. Mahmood Fateh from the FRA Office of Research and Development was the program manager. The National Science Foundation funded the initial research effort. Several individuals and organizations were instrumental for the realization of the two field tests. They include Simone Sternini of UCSD for participation to the 2015 field test; Dr. Robert Wilson of Volpe Transportation Center, currently with the FRA, for technical support, evaluation, and participation in the field tests; Eric Sherrock and Jeff Meunier of ENSCO for field test support and hy-railer operation; and Lucas Welander, Nolan Hanson, Ryan Sheehan, and Dr. Dingqing Li of Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI), and FRA’s on-site engineer Louis Maal for field test logistics and support.
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Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 143 • Issue 5 • May 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 25, 2016
Accepted: Oct 5, 2016
Published ahead of print: Feb 1, 2017
Published online: Feb 2, 2017
Published in print: May 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Jul 2, 2017
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