The inspection stages of railway axles, wheels and wheelsets are critical during the design and implementation of production lines and maintenance workshops. This is because the safety of railway components is a challenge for the railway industry. Taken this into account, Eddy Current technology is standing out as the core of new automatic inspection machines for the automatic surface integrity control of key components. However, the potential use of the Eddy Current inspection in the railway industry is a matter that has not been studied in detail yet. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the Eddy Current technology for the surface inspection of axles. For doing this, a modelling approach by CIVA is presented considering different strategies and new inspection concepts. The simulations have been validated with experimental tests that have demonstrated the advantages of the use of the Eddy Current technology during the surface inspections of the axles.
