Speakers and Topics: Heavy Haul Seminars Sessions Abstract

Topic: The Future of NRC's Instrumented Wheelsets

Presenter: Albert Wahba

Company: NRC - CSTT

Abstract:

Railway Instrumented Wheelsets (IWS) are very useful as a tool to measure wheel/rail contact forces in real-time. IWS have been used for many years to evaluate new car and truck designs as required by AAR’s Manual of Standards and Recommended Practices, standard M1001 (Chapter 11), to investigate derailments and in other applications. More recently, IWS have been used to evaluate track condition as a performance based track safety measurement instrument. Although IWS are a very valuable tool for these applications, there are some limitations on using them on a larger scale, primarily as a result of cost and service interruptions that are associated with their use. In an effort to make the tool more cost effective and more reliable, NRC has undertaken the development of an autonomous instrumented wheelset (aIWS) system. NRC has successfully tested a prototype of this next generation of IWS which will overcome the current limitations and help in the widespread of IWS usage. This will help in having safer track, and will also to help in reducing maintenance costs. In this presentation, NRC will give an overview on benefits of IWS usage and provide an update on the current state of the aIWS initiative.