Apparatus for monitoring the rails of a railway or tramway line

• US 20030140509A1
• Filed: 11/04/2002
• Published: 07/31/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tecnogamma Spa
• Original Assignee: Tecnogamma Spa
• Inventors: Casagrande, Ettore
• Granted Patent: US 7,036,232 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 33/287
• CPC Class Codes: B61K 9/08 Measuring installations for surveying permanent way applications of measuring apparatus or devices for track building purposes E01B35/00; measuring techniques G01
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 23/045 Rail wear
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 11/245 using a plurality of fixed, simultaneously operating transducers G01B11/2408 - G01B11/2425, G01B11/255 take precedence

Abstract

A laser apparatus for monitoring the rails of a railway or tramway line, characterised by comprising at least two measurement units (4, 8) mounted on a railway or tramway carriage and operating at least on the inner part of the two rails (6), along which said carriage is made to advance, and a unit for processing the signals transmitted by said measurement units, each of which comprises at least one triangulation reading device.

Claims

1. A laser apparatus for monitoring the rails of a railway or tramway line, comprising for each rail (6) a measuring unit (4,8), provided with triangulation reading devices using a laminar laser beam (2) generated by a laser source (4) and directed towards the rail to be monitored, and a video camera (8) positioned at a certain angle to the laser beam (2), and further comprising a process unit for processing the signal transmitted by said measurement units, said measurement and processor units being mounted on a railway or tramway carriage made to advance along said railway or tramway line, characterised in that:

said measurement unit comprises at least two triangulation reading devices positioned aligned along the axis of the respective rail (6) and focussed on the top of the rail head, and

said processor unit comprises software means able to calculate the derivative of the differential measurement obtained from each of said at least two triangulation reading devices and hence to determine the undulatory wear of the rail.

2. A laser apparatus as claimed in claim 1 characterised in that each measurement unit further comprises a profile reading device, consisting of at least a triangulation device operating at least on the inner part of the respective rail.

3. A laser apparatus as claimed in claim 2 characterised in that it comprises a central measuring unit (10), in which said triangulation reading devices are located, and a pair of end measurement units (20,30) positioned upstream and downstream of said central measurement unit (10) and each comprising at least one profile reading device of the same type as provided in said central unit (10), to determine together with this latter the track geometry, by processing the signals generated by said profile reading device.

4. An apparatus as claimed in claim 3, characterised by comprising laser signal generators (34) located on the central measurement unit (10) and laser signal sensors (16) located on said end measurement units (20, 30) and operationally associated with said laser signal generators (34) to measure the elastic deformations of the railway or tramway carriage and automatically compensate the resultant measurement errors.

5. An apparatus as claimed in one or more of claims 1 to 4, characterised in that each measurement unit (10, 20, 30) consists of a container (22) for the various laser reading devices, which is applicable to the railway or tramway carriage and is provided in its base, which faces the rails (6), with windows (36) associated with the laser sources (4, 14, 24, 34) and with the video cameras (8, 18, 28).

6. An apparatus as claimed in claim 5, characterised in that with that wall of the container (22) which comprises the windows (36) there is associated a screen (26) which is provided with apertures positioned to coincide with said windows (36) and is slidable between two end positions, in one of which said apertures face said windows.

7. An apparatus as claimed in claim 6, characterised in that the screen (26) is provided with wiper blades associated with the various windows (36) of the container and slidable along their glass as result of the movement of said screen.