Noncontact Ultrasonic Guided-Wave System for Rail Inspection Update on Project at University of California, San Diego

The University of California, San Diego (UCSD), with an FRA Office of Research and Development grant, is developing a system for highspeed and noncontact rail defect detection. A prototype was designed and field tested with the support of Volpe National Transportation Systems Center and ENSCO, Inc. The goal of this project was to develop a rail defect detection system that provided (a) better defect detection reliability (including internal transverse head defects under shelling and vertical split heads) and (b) higher inspection speed than achievable by current rail inspection systems. This effort was also in direct response to safety recommendations issued by the National Transportation Safety Board after the disastrous train derailments at Superior, Wisconsin, in 1992 and Oneida, New York, in 2007, among others. The UCSD prototype used noncontact ultrasonic probing of the rail head (laser and air-coupled sensors), ultrasonic guided waves, and a proprietary real-time statistical analysis algorithm that maximized the sensitivity to defects while it minimized false positives. The design allowed potential inspection speeds up to 40 mph, although to date all field tests were conducted up to IS mph. This paper (a) summarizes the latest technology development test conducted at the rail defect farm of Herzog, Inc., in Saint Joseph, Missouri, in June 2010 and (b) describes the completion of the new rail defect farm facility at the UCSD Camp Elliott Field Station with partial in-kind donations from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.