Development and optimisation of advanced solution design methodologies for the railway industry

The structural integrity of wheels used in rolling stocks is of great importance to rail industry. A number of rail accidents have been directly related to the failure of wheels, leading to increased demands for the inspection and maintenance of such components. Nowadays, the most common NDT inspection methods for wheels are visual inspection and magnetic particle inspection. However, these inspection methods have several disadvantages that promote the research of other inspection techniques. This study is focused on the development and optimization of two advanced ultrasonic solutions, whose principal advantages are: the lack of significant distortions on the piece during the inspection and the possibility to automatize it by an user-friendly compact equipment. For that purpose, a specific ultrasonic simulation tool (CIVA software) has been used and the results have been validated building an inspection prototype.