Tilting of Trains

There are many monitoring requirements for high speed trains for many different reasons such as:

• side tilting of the trains due to possible vertical mutual differential movement of rails
• wheels’ vibration due to disconnected sections of the rails (excessive vibration leads to higher demand for maintenance)
• the same is true for the measurement of consistency of magnetic field for trains on magnetic tracks

Monitoring of Tilting (straight rails)
Our very precise fiber optic tilting sensor can be customized for any level of tilting sensitivity on straight stretches of the railway. In that straight case scenario a tilting sensor along X axes can be used as there’s no need for calculation of the tilting angle. A simple table is used to convert light intensity from the sensor’s output in dBm into angle of tilt.

Monitoring of Tilting (curved rails)
For curved stretches of the railway our very precise rotational sensor along traveling X axes has to be used in order to factor out centripetal forces during curving. In that case the sensor’s output values have to be stored in a database and angle of tilting calculated, therefore, for straight stretches the measurement is simpler.

Monitoring of Vibration
For vibration monitoring of train’s wheels (chassis) there are two sensing units developed. One is for horizontal vibration and the other for vertical vibration. Both units can be customized for any level of sensitivity in view of these two types of vibration.
Simple housing is used, so that the body of the sensor interface directly with the surface of vibrating element.
The vibration curve can be recorded in time in order to see at which stretch of the railway what type and degree of vibration occurred.

For this type of application we are looking for a partner, who would be interested in testing of this sensor equipment.