• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.248-257
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• 2011

It was reported recently that railpads can be included as a continuous elastic support of the rail and the model was justified from experiments. In general, however, railpads are installed discretely on sleepers with a regular span. The effect of the discrete railpad was not clearly examined so far in such a high frequency range. In this paper, the effect of the railpads in track modelling for high frequencies is investigated by means of the finite element analysis. To do that, the railpads are regarded as 'a continuous elastic support' and 'a discrete elastic support' in this paper. The dispersion relations and decaying features are predicted and compared between the two models up to 80 kHz.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.38-43
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• 2014

An experimental method based on flexural wave propagation is proposed for identification of structural damage in rail fastening systems. The vibration of a rail clamped and supported by viscoelastic pads is significantly influenced by dynamic support properties. Formation of a defect in the rail fastening system induces changes in the flexural wave propagation characteristics owning to the discontinuity in the structural properties. In this study, frequency-dependent support stiffness was measured to monitor this change by a transfer function method. The sensitivity of wave propagation on the defect was measured from the potential energy stored in a continuously supported rail. Further, the damage index was defined as a correlation coefficient between the change in the support stiffness and the sensitivity. The defect location was identified from the calculated damage index.