TY - CONF A1 - Erhard, Anton A1 - Bertus, Norbert A1 - Montag, Hans-Joachim A1 - Schenk, Gottfried A1 - Hintze, H. T1 - Ultrasonic Phased Array System for Railroad Axle Examination T2 - Proceedings of the 8th ECNDT N2 - Introduction Due to the long history of railroad companies around the world, varying means of examination according to the specifications for the different railroad components have been carried out based on the general industrial progress of the country [1-3]. For more than 50 years the application of customized ultrasonic techniques for the examination of railroad components has increased, in comparison to conventional ultrasonic techniques used until to the end of 20th century. In this traditional atmosphere some accidents have disturbed the silent harmony of companies involved in the production of critical parts. More than ever high speed modern trains require modern and advanced examination techniques [4-8]. For practical application new ultrasonic techniques have been developed and optimized in co-operation with the German Railroad Company. In the present contribution the inspection of railroad axles will be described. The ultrasonic technique used for the examination is the phased array technique. The optimization of the phased array probes for the different geometries of the axles given was completed using a computer model for directivity calculations. In relation to the limited accessibility between wheel and brake angles of incidence for shear waves in the range between 28° and 72° are necessary. During the examination of the axles a a considerable amount of ultrasonic data must be stored (storage of the digitized A-scans). However, due to economic aspects the evaluation of this data should be carried out in a very short time. The whole examination of one axle should not exceed 5 minutes. Therefore we have developed a special evaluation program adapted to the particular problematic of the axle inspection. The build up of the whole inspection system was done with partners from the industry like Krautkramer and a division of the Research Department of the Deutsche Bahn AG. In this consortium the Research Department of the Deutsche Bahn AG was responsible for the specification of the inspection problem, Krautkramer for the organization of the whole technical follow up and BAM for the development and optimization of the ultrasonic inspection technique as well as for the evaluation software. Some examples concerning the optimization process will be described in the present contribution. T2 - 8th ECNDT CY - Barcelona, Spain DA - 2002-06-17 PY - 2002 UR - http://www.ndt.net/article/ecndt02/75/75.htm PB - European Federation for Non-Destructive Testing CY - Barcelona AN - OPUS4-1414 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -