Signal Processing and Analysis Techniques Used in Monitoring the Integrity of Rail Vehicle Components

Abstract

Structural health monitoring (SHM) technology is planned to be used in monitoring rail vehicle components, such as high-stress areas of bolsters, carbodies and bogies, etc. Many advanced techniques are studied for assisting the SHM technology in realizing functions of designing sensor layout, processing signal, and finding, locating and evaluating damages. Based on the geometry and the operating features of rail vehicles, some existing measures, such as calculation of probability of detection at SHM sensor network, extraction of first arrival windows from received signals, calculation of damage indices and compensation of signal changes resulting from environmental factors are employed in the studies. In this paper, the following four aspects are reported: first, description of the current status and challenge of maintaining rail vehicle components; second, introduction of operating features of rail vehicles; third, introduction of SHM technology and some related leading methodologies that are available for monitoring the integrity of rail vehicle components; fourth, based on the first three aspects, a preliminary study has been conducted and the recommendation for future studies is discussed