A displacement monitoring test of the bridge for our customer CP Rail was completed last week with valuable insights.
Why is this important?
Rail bridge failures can have serious consequences.
One most recent example is the Massive train derailment near Hope, B.C. Fortunately no injuries and no dangerous goods are involved in this incident, but imagine otherwise. This is the type of railway failures IoT real time vibration sensing could help prevent. A small investment in disaster prevention technology could help save the government, industrial operators, and property owners billions in recovery and reclamation cost, protect the environment and in some cases save lives.
Ours sensor system is the very first commercially available vibration sensing technology to compare displacement readings against a dial indicator with 1/1000 inch accuracy. Structural experts can observe more structural movement details with our sensors, that can help them to predict failures on an unprecedented accuracy level, diagnose structural problems or analyze repair package effectiveness.
The Test Setup
A waveform generator is connected to a shaker to generate vibration signals. PCB of Symroc's Vibration Sensor (inside the yellow box shown in the image to the left) is connected to the shaker to compare the readings of vibration data to a dial indicator.
The Result
The result from Symroc's sensor PCB displayed high resolution signals of simulated train movement.
Ch1 is the vertical displacement. Each small sinusoidal wave indicates each wheel’s impact on the track and each big wave represents the impact on the train track caused by each individual cart.
This visualized data generated by Symroc's vibration system can help experts in determining the dynamic impact stress caused by each individual wheel to help them predict cracking on rail tracks and prevent failures.