LU automatic ultrasonic inspection system for in-service wheelset and its application

Wheel set is one of the most important components for railway vehicles. Comprehensive NDT wheel set ensuring system and corresponding equipment have been developed in some countries to ensure the safety of wheel set. LU automatic ultrasonic inspection system for in-service wheel set has been widely applied in Chinese high speed train, which uses advanced phased array ultrasonic technology to inspect circumferential, radial and bias fatigue cracks in wheel rim and wheel disk. To automatically, precisely and flexibly posit the probes carrier to the surface of wheel tread, the intelligent robot is used, which makes LU system easy to inspect all types of EMUs manufactured by Bombardier, Siemens, Alston, Kawasaki and China. By the usage of fully automatic control and wireless data transfer technique, LU system can accomplish the inspection of one wheel set within 7 minutes. More than 70 sets of LU system have been applied in CRH EMUs service depots, and hundreds of defects have been detected from 300,000 inspected CRH wheel sets. Now LU system plays a significant role in high speed train wheel set safety ensuring.