Waveband Analysis of Track Irregularities in High-Speed Railway from On-Board Acceleration Measurement

Abstract

This paper is focused on waveband analysis of the lateral and vertical track irregularities from the on-board acceleration measurement of in-service high-speed trains. The track irregularities play important roles to determine dynamic stability of vehicles and ride quality of passengers, so that their amplitude and wavelength should be monitored continuously and carefully. Measuring acceleration at the axle-box or bogie of the trains has been under consideration for low-cost implementation and robust to a harsh railway environment. To estimate the track irregularities, lateral and vertical vibration caused by the wheel/track interaction is measured by the axle-box and bogie mounted accelerometers of an in-service high-speed train. A Kalman filter is used to prevent unrealistic drifts in the estimation. By applying the waveband-pass and compensation filters to the estimated displacement, it is possible to estimate the track irregularities. A distance-wavelength representation is used to identify their waveband in an intuitive way. It is verified by comparing with a commercial track geometry measurement system. From their comparison, it confirms that the representation can produce a satisfactory result.

Pareto-Based Maintenance Decisions for Regional Railways With Uncertain Weld Conditions Using the Hilbert Spectrum of Axle Box Acceleration

“…A technology capable of (1) shortwave irregularity detection and (2) the capture of the dynamic response of welds is needed [16]. ABA measurement systems with these capabilities have been reported in different countries: the detection of lateral and vertical track irregularities in Korea [17]; the evaluation of wheel load fluctuation and rolling noise in Japan [18]; the detection of corrugations in Poland [19] and Italy [20]; the detection of rolling contact fatigue defects, damaged welds, and insulated joints in the Netherlands ( [21], [22]); and the analysis of vertical track geometry in Spain [23]. ABA system implementation has different advantages: (1) ABA is a low-cost measurement system compared to other types of detection methods.…”

An approach for the estimation of lateral track irregularity using axle-box acceleration

“…In 2012, Real et al (2011), Real et al (2012 and Real et al (2014) get the vertical and lateral track irregularity by filtering and double integration of the measured ABA. Lee et al (2010), Lee et al (2012a), Lee et al (2012b), Lee et al (2012c) inverted the measured lateral and vertical accelerations of the axle box and bogie of the high-speed train into track irregularities based on the mixed filter and the compensation of the amplitude and phase in different band. In 2015, Tsai et al (2015) calculated the alignment by double integration of lateral ABA.…”