Enhanced method and apparatus for deducing a correct rail weight for use in rail wear analysis of worn railroad rails
First Claim
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1. A system for identifying rail weights applicable to worn railroad rails measured along a railroad track system comprising:
- at least one track measurement device for recording at least a portion of a profile shape of the worn rails; and
, a data processor running a software implement for accepting recorded data as input data from the at least one track measurement device and for processing the input data against known unworn railroad rail data to facilitate selection and application of the appropriate rail weights equated thereto to the worn railroad rails.
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Abstract
A system for identifying rail weights applicable to worn railroad rails measured along a railroad track system includes at least one track measurement device for recording at least a portion of a profile shape of the worn rails, and, a data processor running a software implement for accepting recorded data as input data from the at least one track measurement device and for processing the input data against known unworn railroad rail data to facilitate selection and application of the appropriate rail weights equated thereto to the worn railroad rails.
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Citations
44 Claims
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1. A system for identifying rail weights applicable to worn railroad rails measured along a railroad track system comprising:
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at least one track measurement device for recording at least a portion of a profile shape of the worn rails; and
,a data processor running a software implement for accepting recorded data as input data from the at least one track measurement device and for processing the input data against known unworn railroad rail data to facilitate selection and application of the appropriate rail weights equated thereto to the worn railroad rails. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 42)
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13. A software implement for identifying rail weights applicable to worn railroad rails measured along a railroad track system comprising:
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a feature extractor for extracting geometric features from recorded data of the worn rails; and
a rail weight classifier for comparing the extracted features to the same features of unworn rail shapes and for selecting an appropriate rail weight equated to an unworn rail shape for application to a worn rail. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 43)
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21. A method for identifying a correct a rail weight for a worn rail profile given data recorded from the worn rail by a track measurement system including steps of:
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(a) identifying geometric features of the worn rail profile;
(b) unifying the identified features as a single feature vector;
(c) comparing the single feature vector to one or more similarly constructed feature vectors previously stored for comparison, the previously stored feature vectors representing unworn rail profiles; and
(d) selecting a feature match of that of a worn rail profile to that of an unworn rail profile. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 39, 40, 41, 44)
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30. In a system for identifying rail weights applicable to worn railroad rails measured along a railroad track system, a method for correcting a worn rail profile for an angle of cant comprising steps of:
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(a) detecting the existence of cant attributed to a web portion of the rail profile;
(b) retrieving a sample of any like web portion of an unworn rail aligned to true vertical;
(c) cross-correlating the web portion of the worn rail to the web portion of the unworn rail;
(d) identifying the direction of cant of the worn rail against the unworn rail;
(e) rotating the web portion of the worn rail a number of increments of angle opposite the cant direction; and
(f) accepting as a correction angle, the sum of rotation increments required to obtain a least discrepant match in cross-correlation to the symmetry of the web portion of the unworn rail profile. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38)
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Specification