Antonio Cabrera
New York City Transit
Eric Magel
NRC, Canada
Abstract:
Integrated Wheel/Rail Characterization through Advanced Monitoring and Analytics – an Overview
The FTA recently awarded a cooperative research and development contract to the MTA- New York City Transit (NYCT) to lead a collaborative research project team to focus on the wheel-rail interaction. MTA-NYCT-led collaborative research team that proposed this work to the FTA includes KLD Labs, Dayton T. Brown, National Research Council of Canada, Plasser America, New York City Department of Subways and the NYCT Office of Strategic Innovation and Technology. Wayside Inspection Devices and ISI are subcontracted to KLD Labs for this work. This Collaborative Research Project is entitled “Integrated Wheel/Rail Characterization through Advanced Monitoring and Analytics”.
The mission of the project is:
To foster decision making associated with wheel and track condition monitoring and condition-based maintenance. Benefits will be identified and quantified for improved operational safety, system resiliency, post-event system service recovery, condition-based maintenance and optimized propulsion energy use through enhanced management of the subway car wheel set profiles, track maintenance, and knowledge of the conditions of the wheel/rail surface contact.
The first year will focus on the installation, commissioning and integration of measuring systems on an 11 car revenue consist as well as wayside monitoring systems along MTA’s Flushing (#7) Transit Line. The train consist will be monitored for energy consumption, noise and ride quality and will also be equipped with two instrumented wheelsets. Strain gauges will be installed on one curve to monitor lateral and vertical forces, while the nearby tangent section will be equipped with a TBOGI system to measure wheelset angle of attack and lateral position. Near the MTA-NYCT’s Corona Car Maintenance Shop, a wayside wheel profile scanning system will regularly collect wheel profiles from all the cars on the #7 line. The data collected from these systems will be centrally stored and then brought together with the wheel profile, track geometry and video imagery available from MTA-NYCT’s Track Inspection Car.
While each system provides valuable data in its own right, a key objective of the program will be the integration of those data streams to provide advanced analytics.
This presentation will serve chiefly as an introduction to the program, with future presentations expected to report on the program results.