Automated Measurement of Stress in Continuous Welded Rail -Artificial Heating Option Study

The overall objective of this grant is to continue the research and development of the nondestructive method for the measurement of the rail NT based on nonlinear ultrasonic guided waves. The specific research tasks include: 2.1 Developing, testing and demonstrating the option of artificial rail heating to speed up the test and minimize the influence of weather and passing trains. 2.2 Identifying the calibration setting parameters of the ultrasonic nonlinear measurement for two new rail sizes (115RE and 132RE) that are widely employed by US railroads. 2.3 Optimizing the software for the analysis of the ultrasonic data by a field deployable system. The planned additional work is expected to fully meet these performance goals.