New ultrasonic inspection strategies for railways

Assuring the quality and lack of defects in key components is very important to railway industry. Strict safety requirements are leading to increase the development of new and innovative systems for the production and maintenance of such components. Nowadays, the most common NDT inspection methods for railway are conventional ultrasonic (UT) and magnetic particle inspection (MPI) to detect volumetric and superficial defects respectively. This study proposes new strategies to perform ultrasonic inspections on railway axles. Simulation models have been developed in CIVA to design new approaches that increase probability of detection (POD) and reliability in the whole volume of the axle. The simulations have been validated with experimental tests. As a result, new ultrasonic inspection system concepts are presented for the inspection of railway axles.