Track irregularities estimation based on acceleration measurements

Track irregularity is the main source of external excitation for a rolling stock system. And maintaining the alignment of railway track is vitally important for the smooth and safe passage of railway vehicles. In this paper, a method for the identification of lateral and vertical track irregularity from acceleration measurements on board the train is presented. The measurements for the track irregularities are the acceleration of the bogie and the car-body. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by simulation results. The analysis of acceleration data in the time and frequency domain show that the displacement signals from bogies/car-body acceleration follow the lateral/vertical track irregularity very well. The track vertical irregularity have the most significant effect on the bogie vertical vibration, with high coherent value up to 0.95.While the car-body lateral vibration is not closely related to the track lateral irregularity with low coherence values below 0.25.