Condition Stages Identification for Railway Crossing Monitoring System

In the structural health monitoring for railway crossings, identifying the condition stages of the crossing elements is an important step for the crossing condition assessment. This paper presents the condition stages identification procedure using the multi-body system method. This study is carried out on the 1:9 crossings that are most commonly used in the Dutch railway and suffering a lot from damages. By introducing different types of damage into the vehicle-crossing model and compare the dynamic responses with the measurement results, the condition stages of the monitored crossing can be identified. The simulation results show that the development of vertical irregularity and clip damage are clearly reflected on the change of wheel-rail contact force and the rail vertical acceleration. The findings of this study can be further applied in the structural health monitoring (SHM) system for railway crossings developed by TU Delft.