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Title:

Prioritization of Rail Defect Inspection: A Risk-Based Optimization Approach

Accession Number:

01630550

Record Type:

Component

Abstract:

Broken rail is the most common type of mainline derailment cause on freight railroads in the United States. Detection and removal of rail defects is important for reducing the risk due to broken-rail-caused derailments. The current practice is to periodically inspect rails using non- destructive technologies, particularly ultrasonic inspection. Determining and prioritizing the frequency of rail defect inspection is an important decision in broken rail risk management. This paper develops a generalized, risk-based mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model that can optimize segment-specific rail defect inspection frequency to minimize route broken rail risk under limited inspection resources. A number of numerical examples are used to illustrate the application of the model. This analysis shows that the use of an optimization approach can result in a reduction of broken rail risk compared to an empirical heuristic that all segments on the same route are inspected at an equal frequency. The optimization algorithm is being implemented into a computer-aided decision support tool called “Rail Risk Optimizer” that can automatically recommend an optimal segment-specific ultrasonic rail defect inspection frequency given risk factors such as rail age and traffic density. The flexible research methodology and the practice-ready optimization tool can potentially assist the railroad industry to mitigate broken rail risk in a cost-efficient manner.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AR060 Standing Committee on Railway Maintenance.

Monograph Accession #:

01618707

Report/Paper Numbers:

17-05054

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Zhou, Kang
Liu, Xiang
Zhou, Yu

Pagination:

19p

Publication Date:

2017

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2017-1-8 to 2017-1-12
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

Figures; References; Tables

Uncontrolled Terms:

Broken rail

Subject Areas:

Maintenance and Preservation; Planning and Forecasting; Railroads; Vehicles and Equipment

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2017 Paper #17-05054

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Dec 8 2016 11:57AM