Railway Crack Flaw Detection Monitoring System with Ultrasonic NDT in LabView Visualization

The Ultrasonic Rail Flaw Detector is the latest railway crack detection tool developed and currently used by PT KAI. This tool is designed to detect cracks or defects in the walls and at the bottom of the rail by pushing it along the railroad track. In this research, monitoring of the railroad crack detection process was carried out using the N on-Destructive Testing method with ultrasonic waves, which includes two types of scanning, namely A-scan scanning and B-scan scanning. B-scan type scanning can record continuously and is controlled by a signal shaft encoder. This system detects cracks or defects in the rail surface, which is integrated with the Lab Viewuser interface to monitor the condition of the rail in real time. This tool has a working temperature ranging from O°C to 60°C. This probe can detect railroad cracks with a resolution of 0.5 mm and a speed of 4.17 m/s, with a maximum limit of cracks over 34 mm, a detection range of approximately 43 to 75 kg/m rail, and an achievement range of 0 - 110 dB. It inspects the rail surface in the forward and reverse directions with a 70-degree angle beam transducer in six channels and 37.5-degree sensors that function to collect data from the front and back of the middle rail in two channels. The research method uses field observation supported by damage data and maintenance data, then simulates the stress distribution due to the weight loading of the train and its wheels under two conditions: static weight loading and dynamic weight loading of the train, and then compares results in the Lab Viewapplication. The results reveal that the system can detect rail faults with high accuracy, allowing it to locate cracks quickly and mitigate accidents.