Characterisation of defects in the railhead using ultrasonic surface waves

The ability to detect defects in rail, and in particular surface defects such as gauge corner cracking, is essential. Current ultrasonic testing of the rail uses contacting transducers in a send-receive mode which are at present limited in testing speed to around 20-30 mph, and signals from serious surface defects may be masked by nearby shallow surface defects. Using Rayleigh-like surface waves generated and detected in a pitch-catch manner we can overcome the effect of this masking, and by using electro-magnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs) working at a small standoff we may be able to lift many of the current rail testing speed limitations with a high accuracy for detecting and gauging surface defects. We present experiments on rail samples with real and machined defects, using EMATs to generate and detect a low-frequency wide-band surface wave. The depths of the defects can be characterised through analysis of both the time domain signal amplitude and frequency dependent behaviour. The design of EMAT used is discussed, with consideration of signal, frequency content, directionality of the signal and the effect of standoff above the sample. (C) 2006 R.S. Edwards. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.