Correlation Analysis and Verification of Railway Crossing Condition Monitoring

Abstract

This paper presents a correlation analysis of the structural dynamic responses and weather conditions of a railway crossing. Prior to that, the condition monitoring of the crossing as well as the indicators for crossing condition assessment are briefly introduced. In the correlation analysis, strong correlations are found between acceleration responses with irregular contact ratios and the fatigue area. The correlation results between the dynamic responses and weather variables indicate the influence of weather on the performance of the crossing, which is verified using a numerical vehicle-crossing model developed using the multi-body system (MBS) method. The combined correlation and simulation results also indicate degraded track conditions of the monitored crossing. In the condition monitoring of railway crossings, the findings of this study can be applied to data measurement simplification and regression, as well as to assessing the conditions of railway crossings.