Inspection of rail axles is carried out in depot and at overhaul, and methods used included ultrasonics, MPI and eddy current methods. However, all these methods require manual intervention. An inspection of axles of a train simultaneously while it passes an inspection station has only been attempted once before, with limited success. Use of an alternating current passing through the axle while observing the heat patterns produced on a thermal camera is a potential method of carrying out this operation. The paper describes modelling and experimental work showing how the method could be deployed in the workshop and at trackside.
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