A comparative investigation of the effects of concrete sleepers on the GPR signal for the assessment of railway ballast

Lists

Bianchini Ciampoli, Luca, Artagan, Salih Serkan, Tosti, Fabio ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0291-9937, Alani, Amir and Benedetto, Andrea (2018) A comparative investigation of the effects of concrete sleepers on the GPR signal for the assessment of railway ballast. In: 17th International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar, 18-21 Jun 2018, Rapperswil, Switzerland. (In Press)

[thumbnail of Railway Ballast_GPR 2018.pdf]

PDF
Railway Ballast_GPR 2018.pdf - Accepted Version
Restricted to Repository staff only
Download (1MB) | Request a copy

Official URL: https://www.gpr2018.hsr.ch/index.php?id=15715&no_c...

Abstract

This paper reports an investigation into the influence of concrete railway sleepers on the ground-penetrating radar (GPR) signal for the assessment of railway ballast. The main aim was to comprehend the effects of these components on the GPR signal compared to the signal response collected on ballast (clean and fouled conditions) without sleepers. To this purpose, a methacrylate container with dimensions of 1.5 m × 1.5 m × 0.50 m was filled up with limestone railway ballast aggregates. Hence, two concrete sleepers of standard dimensions were laid above the material. GPR tests were carried out using 4 different air-coupled antenna systems with frequencies of 1000 MHz, 1500 MHz and 2000 MHz (in both the standard and low-powered version). Each antenna system was oriented in two different ways, i.e. longitudinally and transversely with respect to the orientation of the tracks. Data interpretation was made by way of comparison between the time-domain and the spectral signal responses of the configuration with “ballast material only” and the configuration with “ballast material and sleepers” (longitudinal/transversal orientation of the antenna systems, one/two concrete sleepers and clean/fouled ballast). Results have proven distinctive features of the GPR signal in terms of antenna frequency and orientation, paving the way to enhanced data interpretation in both clean and fouled ballast conditions.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Keywords:	ground-penetrating radar (GPR), railway concrete sleepers, railway ballast, ballast fouling, signal processing
Subjects:	Construction and engineering > Civil and environmental engineering Construction and engineering > Digital signal processing Construction and engineering > Electrical and electronic engineering Construction and engineering > Civil and structural engineering
Depositing User:	Fabio Tosti
Date Deposited:	04 Apr 2018 06:44
Last Modified:	28 Aug 2021 07:09
URI:	https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/4789

Actions (login required)

View Item

References

[1] Indraratna, B. (2016), 1st Proctor lecture of ISSMGE: railroad performance with special reference to ballast and substructure characteristics, Transportation Geotechnics, 7, 74–114.
[2] Li, D., Hyslip, J., Sussmann, T. & Chrismer, S. (2016), Transportation Geotechnics, CRC Press, Roca Baton, FL.
[3] Giese, E., Blum, O. & Risch, K. (1925), Linienf¨uhrung, Springer, Berlin, Germany.
[4] Tzanakakis, K. (2013), The Railway Track and Its Long Term Behaviour, Springer, Berlin, Germany.
[5] Pyrgidis, C. N. (2016), Railway Transportation Systems: Design, Construction and Operation, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
[6] D. Li et al., “Evaluation of Ground Penetrating Radar Technologies for Assessing Track Substructure Conditions.”
[7] B. Solomon, Railway Maintenance Equipment. Voyageur Press.
[8] I. L. Al-Qadi, W. Xie, R. Roberts, and Z. Leng, “Data analysis techniques for GPR used for assessing railroad ballast in high radio-frequency environment,” J. Transp. Eng., vol. 136, no. 4, pp. 392–399, 2010.
[9] M. R. Clark, R. Gillespie, T. Kemp, D. M. McCann, and M. C. Forde, “Electromagnetic properties of railway ballast,” NDT E Int., vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 305–311, 2001.
[10] P. Anbazhagan, P. S. N. Dixit, and T. P. Bharatha, “Identification of type and degree of railway ballast fouling using ground coupled GPR antennas” J. Appl. Geophys., vol. 126, pp. 183–190, Mar. 2016.
[11] A.Benedetto, F.Tosti, L. Bianchini Ciampoli, A. Calvi, M. G. Brancadoro, A. M. Alani , “Railway ballast condition assessment using ground-penetrating radar – An experimental, numerical simulation and modelling development”, Constr. Build. Mat.., vol. 140, pp. 508–520, Jun. 2017.
[12] E. T. Selig and J. M. Waters, Track Geotechnology and Substructure Management. Thomas Telford, 1994.
[13] L. Bianchini Ciampoli, F. Tosti, A. Calvi A. Benedetto, A. M. Alani, “Efficient practices in railway ballast maintenance and quality assessment using GPR”, proceedingss of the Aiit International Congress on Transport Infrastructure and Systems, pp.419-424, Apr, 2017.
[14] R. Jack and P. Jackson, “Imaging attributes of railway track formation and ballast using ground probing radar,” NDT E Int., vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 457–462, 1999.
[15] J. Hugenschmidt, “Railway track inspection using GPR,” J. Appl. Geophys., vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 147–155, 2000.
[16] W. Shao, A. Bouzerdoum, S. L. Phung, L. Su, B. Indraratna, and C. Rujikiatkamjorn, “Automatic Classification of Ground-Penetrating-Radar Signals for Railway-Ballast Assessment,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., vol. 49, no. 10, pp. 3961–3972, Oct. 2011.
[17] Roberts R, Schutz A, Al-Qadi IL, Tutumluer E. Characterizing railroad ballast using GPR: recent experiences in the United States. In Proceedings of the 2007 4th International Workshop on Advanced Ground Penetrating Radar (IWAGPR 2007), Naples, Italy, 2007, pp. 295–299.
[18] Railway Track and Structures Magazine, June 1985.
[19] Olhoeft GR, Selig ET. Ground penetrating radar evaluation of railroad track substructure conditions. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR 2002), Santa Barbara, USA, Apr. – May 2002.
[20] Leng Z, Al-Qadi IL. Railroad ballast evaluation using ground-penetrating radar. Transp Res Rec 2010:2159;1110–17.
[21] Bianchini Ciampoli L, Tosti F, Brancadoro MG, D’Amico F, Alani AM, Benedetto A. A spectral analysis of ground-penetrating radar data for the assessment of the railway ballast geometric properties. NDTE Int 2017:90; 39-47.
[22] M. G. Brancadoro, L. Bianchini Ciampoli, C. Ferrante, A. Benedetto, F. Tosti, and A. M. Alani, “An Investigation into the railway ballast grading using GPR and image analysis,” in Advanced Ground Penetrating Radar (IWAGPR), 2017 9th International Workshop on, 2017, pp. 1–4.
[23] Benedetto, A., Bianchini Ciampoli, L., Brancadoro, M.G., Alani, A.M. and Tosti, F. (2017). A novel computer-aided model for the simulation of railway ballast by random sequential adsorption process, Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering - An International Journal.
[24] J. P. Hyslip, S. S. Smith, G. R. Olhoeft, and E. T. Selig, “Assessment of railway track substructure condition using ground penetrating radar,” in 2003 Annual Conference of AREMA, 2003.
[25] I. Al-Qadi, W. Xie, and R. Roberts, “Optimization of antenna configuration in multiple-frequency ground penetrating radar system for railroad substructure assessment,” NDT E Int., vol. 43 (1), 20–28, 2010.
[26] G. Manacorda, D. Morandi, A. Sarri, and G. Staccone, “Customized GPR system for railroad track verification,” in Ninth International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR2002), 2002, pp. 719–723.
[27] G. P. Gallagher, Q. Leiper, R. Williamson, M. R. Clark, and M. C. Forde, “The application of time domain ground penetrating radar to evaluate railway track ballast,” NDT E Int., vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 463–468, 1999.
[28] A. Eriksen, B. Venables, J. Gascoyne, and S. Bandyopadhyay, “Benefits of high speed GPR to manage trackbed assets and renewal strategies,” in PWI Conference, June, 2006, vol. 19.
[29] S. Donohue, K. Gavin, and A. Tolooiyan, “Geophysical and geotechnical assessment of a railway embankment failure,” Near Surf. Geophys., vol. 9, no. 1767, Jan. 2011.
[30] J.P. Xiao, Y.Q. Wang, L.B.Liu, "A Multiband-Pass Filter Method to Suppress Sleeper Noise in Railway Subgrade Vehicle-Mounted GPR Data, 16th International Conference on Gr Penetrating Radar (GPR), Bruxelles, Belgium, 2014.
[31] Sophie G., Bruno C., O. Loeffler, and G. Omnes, “Applying a wavenumber notch filter to remove interferences caused by railway sleepers from a GPR section,” in Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, 2002, vol. 4758, pp. 715–718.
[32] L. Liao, X. Yang, and P. DU, “Processing GPR Detection Data of Railway Subgrade,” China Railw. Sci., vol. 03, 2008.
[33] D.-B. Zhu, J.-N. Geng, and M. Huang, “Algorithm for suppressing sleeper interferences in railway subgrade GPR signals,” J. China Railw. Soc., vol. 5, no. 35, pp. 75–79, 2013.
[34] EN 13450: 2013. Aggregates for railway ballast. European Committee for Standardization; 2013.
[35] EN 13230-1:2016, Railway applications - Track - Concrete sleepers and bearers - Part 1: General requirements, European Committee for Standardization, 2016

Tools

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

The University of West London

A comparative investigation of the effects of concrete sleepers on the GPR signal for the assessment of railway ballast

Abstract

Actions (login required)

Menu