Rail Magnetic Flux Leakage Detection and Data Analysis Based on Double-Track Flaw Detection Vehicle

Abstract

The rapid development of the railway industry has brought convenience to people’s lives. However, with the high speed, high frequency and heavy load characteristics of rail use, the safety of rail is seriously threatened. In this paper, a magnetic flux leakage testing (MFL) detection technology of rail based on a double-track flaw detection vehicle is introduced in detail, which can effectively detect the damage of rail top surface, which is the blind area of ultrasonic detection. The magnetic dipole model is used to analyze that the leakage magnetic field in the direction of Bx and Bz above the damage is related to the depth and width of the damage. The relationship between the depth of the damage and the leakage magnetic field is quantitatively studied for the damage with fixed width but varying depth. The finite element simulation tool is used to model and simulate the damage at different depths. After analyzing the different characteristic values, it is found that the peak value of magnetic leakage signal has a certain correlation with the depth of damage, and the natural logarithm function is fitted out—VBx = 0.1451ln(b) + 0.2705, VBz = 2.7787ln(b) + 0.0087. In order to verify the prediction function of the injury depth fitted by the simulation data, the human injury with different depths was processed and the dual-track flaw detector was used to carry out the experiment of high-speed detection environment. The peak-to-peak fitting of the magnetic leakage signals in the direction of Bx and Bz of the experimental results shows that the peak-to-peak variation rule is roughly in line with the natural logarithm function in the simulation. The correlation between the fitting results of the experimental data and the simulation fitting function is analyzed using the Pearson coefficient. The Pearson coefficient in the direction of Bx is ρx = 0.91386. The Pearson coefficient of the Bz direction is ρz = 0.98597, the peak-to-peak value of Bx and Bz direction is positively correlated with the depth of damage and the fitting effect of the Bz direction is better than that of the Bx direction.