In-Service Detection and Quantification of Railway Wheel Flat by the Reflective Optical Position Sensor

Railway wheel tread flat is one of the main faults of railway wheels, which brings great harm to the safety of vehicle operation. In order to detect wheel flats dynamically and quantitatively when trains are running at high speed, a new wheel flat detection system based on the self-developed reflective optical position sensor is demonstrated in this paper. In this system, two sensors were mounted along each rail to measure the wheel-rail impact force of the entire circumference by detecting the displacement of the collimated laser spot. In order to establish a quantitative relationship between the sensor signal and the wheel flat length, a vehicle-track coupling dynamics analysis model was developed using the finite element method and multi-body dynamics method. The effects of train speed, load, wheel flat lengths, as well as the impact positions on impact forces were simulated and evaluated, and the measured data can be normalized according to the simulation results. The system was assessed through simulation and laboratory investigation, and real field tests were conducted to certify its validity and correctness. The system can determine the position of the flat wheel and can realize the quantification of the detected wheel flat, which has extensive application prospects.