Dynamic Deflection of a Railroad Sleeper from the Coupled Measurements of Acceleration and Strain

Dynamic deflection of a railroad sleeper works as an indicator of ballast stiffness, reflecting the health conditions of a ballast track. However, difficulty exists in measuring dynamic deflection of a railroad sleeper by conventional deflection transducers such as a linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) or a potentiometer. This is because a fixed reference point is unattainable due to ground vibrations during train passage. In this paper, a patented signal processing technique for evaluation of pseudo-deflection is presented to recover dynamic deflection of a railroad sleeper using a coupled measurement of acceleration and strain at the concrete sleeper. The presented technique combines high-frequency deflections calculated from double integration of acceleration and low-frequency deflections determined from strains. Validity of the combined deflections was shown by the deflections measured with a camera target on a concrete sleeper, captured by a high-resolution DSLR camera with superb video capturing features and processed by computer vision techniques, such as Canny edge detection and Blob analysis.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.3390/s18072182
• Record URL:
  • http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/18/7/2182
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/14248220
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2018 Sung-Ho Joh et al.
• Authors:
  • Joh, Sung-Ho
  • Magno, Katherine
  • Hwang, Sung Ho
• Publication Date: 2018-7

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 13p
• Serial:
  • Sensors
  • Volume: 18
  • Issue Number: 7
  • Publisher: MDPI AG
  • ISSN: 1424-8220
  • Serial URL: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Deflection; Machine vision; Measurement; Mechanical acceleration; Railroad ties; Strain (Mechanics); Structural health monitoring
• Subject Areas: Railroads; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01678703
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 27 2018 2:04PM