The surface of railway wheels running on rails is subject to damage due to rail and frictional wear, damage from wheel tread and flange wear caused by curved track operations, and damage from flats and concave wear due to braking friction heat from brake shoes. Although the surface of wheels is regularly reprofiled through periodic grinding cycles, damage occurring to the wheel surface during operation can lead to deteriorated ride quality and potential failure due to crack propagation. In domestic railway components technical standards, wheel integrity is mandated to be demonstrated through non-destructive testing. To prevent and detect failures caused by damage occurring on railway wheels, it is necessary to develop methods that could detect and evaluate surface damage. The present study investigated a method for detecting and evaluating surface damage on railway wheels using electromagnetic imaging. Results demonstrated that defects with a length of 10 mm, a width of 0.8 to 1.0 mm, and a depth of 0.2 to 1.0 mm could be adequately detected using electromagnetic scan images.

To develop a technology to diagnose the fault of dampers applied to railway vehicles and to set criteria, test runs were performed to measure damping force and displacement acting on a lateral damper during vehicle operation. Normal damper and fault damper were installed on a test train. Damper force and velocity of the lateral damper during test running were measured. Distributions of damper force and velocity representing the state of the damper had the same distribution in repeated tests. Distribution of the damper force and velocity was consistently uniform regardless of the train driving direction. Thus, the effect of train driving direction on damper force and velocity distribution was insignificant. The fault of the damper appeared to have a direct effect on the distribution of the damper force, suggesting that the fault of the damper could be sufficiently diagnosed just by monitoring the force of the damper. Especially, when comparing the velocity-force distribution, the fault damper showed a clear difference from a normal damper. Results of this paper could be used for developing a technology for diagnosing damper fault for railway vehicles in the future.