Proposal and Application of a New Technique to Forecast Railway Track Damage Because of Track Profile Variations

Abstract

This paper presents a new technique to estimate dynamic impact forces on railway tracks that develop because of variations in track profile. The approach presented uses a wavelet decomposition method to systematically define the irregular profile variation of a rough track length in relation to regular wavelet functions. These functions provide the regular profile variation parameters to estimate the dynamic impact forces using a new method proposed by Bezgin. This paper begins with an introduction of the proposed Bezgin Method and two equations developed by this method to estimate dynamic impact force factors that develop along descending track profiles, followed by the presentation of the wavelet decomposition method to represent the irregular variations in rough track profiles by wavelet functions. The paper then presents three case studies that involve track profile and stiffness measurements and track damage data collection along three railway tracks in the United Kingdom and continues with the applications of the wavelet decomposition method to the measured variations in the track profiles. The equations developed by the Bezgin Method then make use of the processed profile data to estimate the dynamic impact force factors along the railway tracks. The paper ends by correlating the estimated dynamic impact force factors to the damage data collected along the tracks and shows that there is a relation between the observed track damage and the estimated dynamic impact force factors. The proposed technique has, therefore, the potential applications to assess railway track conditions and forecast railway track damage.