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Greener
and more safer trains are making rail transport a more attractive
option for passengers and freight
in comparison to other means of transportation.
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The ever-growing need for the society to employ more environmentally friendly
transportation policies is expected to further underline the economic and societal
role of rail transport in achieving sustainable mobility across Europe in the
years to follow.
Today, the European rail network is continuously getting busier with trains travelling
at higher speeds and carrying more passengers and heavier axle loads than ever
before. The combination of these factors has put considerable pressure on the
existing infrastructure,
leading to increased demands in inspection and maintenance of rail assets. The
rail infrastructure managers have shown strong demand for the development of
novel high-speed techniques for the reliable and accurate evaluation of rails
in order to improve the efficiency of preventive maintenance and reduce
the need for corrective maintenance to the lowest possible level.
Several infrastructure related accidents in the rail industry occur due to rail failure.
The continuous increase in train traffic, axle loads and operating speeds means that the catastrophic failure of a rail section may result in severe derailments,
causing loss of life, injuries, severe disruption in the operation of the network, unnecessary costs, and loss of confidence in rail transport by the public.
I-RAIL seeks to practically eliminate rail failures by successfully delivering a non-contact high-speed rail condition monitoring system based on
Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducer (EMAT) Technology.
The application of the high-speed system will be complemented through the implementation of novel semi-automated testing equipment based on
ultrasonic phased array technology which will be deployed for the in-situ verification and evaluation of the defects detected during high-speed inspection.
The I-RAIL project will support the effort of the rail industry in delivering a modern rail network and achieving better safety standards by
developing a novel intelligent and efficient methodology for the inspection and evaluation of the rail tracks.
It will also enable the participating SMEs to expand their product and services portfolio enabling them to penetrate the rail transport market more efficiently
and promote their sustainable growth in the forthcoming years.
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Project Coordinator