Author: Anish Poudel, Ph.D.

EMAT Update

MXV RAIL R&D, RAILWAY AGE, SEPTEMBER 2023 ISSUE: MxV Rail continues to investigate innovative alternative in-motion wheel inspection technologies that could be used to detect and characterize internal fatigue cracks in the

Figure 1. Comparison of EMAT principle with conventional piezoelectric-based UT principle.

Wheel Defect Detection Using EMATs

RAILWAY AGE MARCH 2022 ISSUE: Since 2020, Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) has been conducting tests to evaluate the capability of electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technology to detect internal defects in railroad wheels.

A wheel with an internal crack detected by ACWDS before the wheel was removed from the FAST train. The inset photo is an example of a broken wheel that might result from such a defect.

TTCI R&D: ACWDS Implementation

RAILWAY AGE, JANUARY 2022 ISSUE: The Automated Cracked Wheel Detector System safely detects wheels with internal defects, without interrupting revenue service.