Wheel-mounted ultrasonic wheel-rail interface monitoring

Knowledge of wheel-rail interface conditions is essential for better understanding of damage mechanisms and for validating numerical models of the interface. The ability to detect third-body materials will also help in understanding if grease or top-of-rail products have been applied effectively. In this work previous contact measuring approaches using ultrasound were extended to allow dynamic contact measurements from a wheel mounted system. The system was assessed on a full-scale rig and was able to produce accurate maps of the contact as well as detecting the presence of a topof-rail product.