Prototype Wayside instrumentation has been designed, developed, and tested that proves the feasibility of measuring braking system effectiveness on moving rail cars. The instrumentation system includes a specially designed short section of instrumented rail and two infrared detectors. The rail section deflects elastically under each passing wheel load, and two orthogonally placed transducers discriminate between rail reaction to braking and to weight. A pair of infrared detectors viewing the rims on both wheels of each axle provide thermal data useful in determining the side to side ratio of total axle braking effort. Together these sensors can generate data to evaluate the braking performance of each wheel. Field tests to evaluate the system were conducted on a commercial rail line and at the U.S. Department of Transportation's Transportation Test Center at Pueblo, CO. Test results showed that the sensors were able to indicate normal and abnormal braking conditions. Also included in the report are a railcar brake system fault and malfunction analysis, structural analysis of the instrumented rail, design analysis of the infrared sensor, detail specifications of the rail and infrared sensors, and recommendations for further system development and testing.
Design, Fabrication and Evaluation of Prototype Wayside Brake Inspection Sensors
1980
205 pages
Report
No indication
English
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