DEVELOPMENT OF A DYNAMIC TRACK MEASURING DEVICE FOR GAUGE AND TWIST TO REDUCE DERAILMENT ACCIDENTS

The track measuring car is very expensive, so static measurement is being carried out not only at regional railway operators but also at major railway operators when it comes to lines in the yard. However, the device for static measurement is lightweight, so it is not possible to obtain dynamic track irregularities due to the wheel load and lateral force during a vehicle running. Therefore, in such a section of the line, a derailment accident may occur when dynamic track irregularity is large due to deterioration of track materials. From the above, with the aim of further reducing derailment accidents, we are developing a low cost measuring device for measuring gauge and twist affecting the driving safety of the vehicle which can be easily mounted on a motor car. This device measures the relative displacement between the device and the rail by the two-dimensional laser sensor and can display the rail profile of the measurement position during data processing. Therefore, when large measurement values are seen, it is possible to grasp whether there is a significant track irregularity at the site or an error at the time of measurement. In addition, we developed a mounting method using the traction coupler of track motor car or bolts for installing the guard iron of passenger vehicles, and carried out the running test at a speed of up to 40km/h to confirm the measuring performance. As a result of calculating the reproducibility (standard deviation of the difference between the two measured values) using measurement data of various speeds, it is confirmed that this device has measurement accuracy equivalent to that of the existing track measuring car. In this paper, we report the outline of the measuring device and the results of running tests conducted to confirm its performance.