TY - CONF A1 - Helmerich, Rosemarie A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Wiggenhauser, Herbert T1 - A toolbox with non-destructive testing methods for the condition assessment of railway bridges N2 - The unified economic structure of the European market requires a unified transport infrastructure to ensure seamless and barrierfree transportation of passengers and goods. The European commission is funding the European Integrated Project Sustainable Bridges to comply with future traffic demands. The main objective of the project is to reliably assess and upgrade the bridge infrastructure for the required increase of axle loads and transport volume. 32 Institutes from 12 countries develop unified procedures for the assessment and improvement of the existing railway bridge stock under the guidance and review of six major European railway companies. Non destructive testing (NDT) is given a high priority. One of the work packages concentrates on the potential of advanced NDT-methods and creates a toolbox with advisable methods for the condition assessment of all types of railway bridges. Although NDT-methods are implemented in the quality assurance process in many industries, their application in the railway infrastructure is not common. Only a few countries have included selected NDT-methods into advanced condition assessment procedures for the management of their bridge stock. This paper describes also current activities to enhance pulse-phase thermography, impulse-radar and acoustic methods. The advanced methods enable infrastructure owners to verify construction plans, to assess structures, repair and strengthening quality or to identify in-service damages. Latest development is an automated scanning system for combined acoustic and electromagnetic measurements. The results are then combined through data fusion techniques to further increase their value for the bridge owners. T2 - 85th TRB Annual Meeting CY - Washington, DC, USA DA - 2006-01-22 KW - Non-Destructive Testing KW - Thermography KW - Railway Bridges KW - NDT-toolbox PY - 2006 SP - 1 EP - 12(?) PB - TRB CY - Washington, D.C. AN - OPUS4-12037 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Helmerich, Rosemarie A1 - Streicher, Doreen A1 - Stoppel, Markus A1 - Wiggenhauser, Herbert ED - Forde, M. T1 - Automated non-destructive investigation of railway bridge condition T2 - 11th International Conference and Exhibiton "Structural Faults and Repair - 2006" CY - Edinburgh, Scotland, UK DA - 2006-06-13 KW - Non-Destructive Testing KW - Automated scanning device KW - Combination of methods KW - Ultrasonic-echo KW - Impact-echo KW - Impulse radar PY - 2006 SN - 0-947644-59-8 SP - 1 EP - 8(?) PB - Engineering Technics Pr., CY - Edingburgh AN - OPUS4-12530 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -