Propagation Characteristics of Ultrasonic Guided Waves in High-Speed Rails

Author(s):  
HUA-PENG CHEN ◽  
KUI SUN ◽  
QINGSONG FENG
2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (19-21) ◽  
pp. 1740075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenqing Yao ◽  
Fuwei Sheng ◽  
Xiaoyuan Wei ◽  
Lei Zhang ◽  
Yuan Yang

Rail defects cause numerous railway accidents. Trains are derailed and serious consequences often occur. Compared to traditional bulk wave testing, ultrasonic guided waves (UGWs) can provide larger monitoring ranges and complete coverage of the waveguide cross-section. These advantages are of significant importance for the non-destructive testing (NDT) of the continuously welded rail, and the technique is therefore widely used in high-speed railways. UGWs in continuous welded rail (CWR) and their propagation characteristics have been discussed in this paper. Finite element methods (FEMs) were used to accomplish a vibration modal analysis, which is extended by a subsequent dispersion analysis. Wave structure features were illustrated by displacement profiles. It was concluded that guided waves have the ability to detect defects in the rail via choice of proper mode and frequency. Additionally, thermal conduction that is caused by temperature variation in the rail is added into modeling and simulation. The results indicated that unbalanced thermal distribution may lead to the attenuation of UGWs in the rail.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 155014772094065
Author(s):  
Xingjie Chen ◽  
Wenfa Zhu ◽  
Guopeng Fan ◽  
Zaiwei Li ◽  
Wei Shao ◽  
...  

Void defects under track slabs are the main danger affecting the safe operation of high-speed railways. In the short high-speed railway maintenance periods, China’s high-speed railway line maintenance operations must quickly and dynamically determine void defects under track slabs that are in service without contact. However, the detection of void defects under track slabs still mainly relies on the manual inspection and flaw detection by railway workers during the railway maintenance period. If the defects are not quickly identified, the consequences could be disastrous. This article presents a new method for the non-contact dynamic detection of void defects under track slabs. The method involves the use of air-coupled ultrasonic sensors to generate and receive ultrasonic guided waves in the track slab to quantitatively represent the size of the void defect according to the principle of energy leakage of guided waves in the propagation process. The characteristics of the position-amplitude curve, taking the position of the beam axis as the abscissa and the amplitude of the time domain signal as the ordinate, were numerically calculated and analyzed. The quantitative relationship between the convex interval of the position-amplitude curve and the size of the void defect was obtained, and an imaging method of the void defects based on x, y two-dimensional line scanning data fusion is proposed. The excitation and reception methods of air-coupled ultrasonic guided waves were studied, and a 1:1 model of the track structure was built in the laboratory to verify the method and detect the void defect under the track slab. The experimental results show that ultrasonic guided waves can be excited and received in the track slab by air-coupled ultrasonic sensors. Based on the guided wave energy leakage principle, the quantitative characterization and imaging of the void defect under track slabs can be realized.


Author(s):  
Zhang Pu-Gen ◽  
Ding Ju ◽  
Yang Yu-Qing ◽  
Xu Jin-Sha ◽  
Lin Jin-Feng

Abstract Due to its special structural form, the reducers have common corrosion defects such as corrosion thinning, cracks and so on after being strongly impacted by the medium inside the pipes. However, there are few studies on the detection of reducers with the help of ultrasonic guided waves at present. In order to explore the effect of reducers to ultrasonic guided waves detection, the propagation characteristics of ultrasonic guided waves in reducer were simulated by using ABQUES. In the simulation, L (0, 2) mode was used to detect the reducer by two set of experiments. The first set of simulation experiment, L (0, 2) mode was excited from the large end of the pipe to detect the pipe with axial crack, circumferential crack and no crack respectively. The second set of simulation experiment, L (0, 2) mode was excited from the small end of the pipe to detect the pipe with axial crack, circumferential crack and no crack. The ability to detect defect was assessed by the time domain waveform of reflected echo, and the dynamic stress distribution cloud map is used to visually explain the propagation characteristics of the guided waves passing through the reducer, and the difference of detection capability between the two ends of excitation is judged by comparing the detection results. The conclusion shows that it is more sensitive to detect defect when ultrasonic guided waves are excited at the larger end, the ability to detect defects is weak when ultrasonic guided waves are excited at the small end. The mode conversion occurs and generate F (1, 1) mode, when the guided waves pass through the reducer from both ends. This paper provides effective technical guidance when ultrasonic guided waves detect defect on reducers.


2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaxin Sun ◽  
Cunfu He ◽  
Bin Wu ◽  
Xiuyan Wang ◽  
Zenghua Liu

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