Transcript 48x36 Poster Template - Northumbria University

Real-Time Rail-Track Monitoring system using Distributed Optical Fibre
Sensor (DOFS) Based on Stimulated Brillouin Scattering
Nageswara Lalam (Year 1), Dr. Wai Pang Ng, Dr. Xuewu (Daniel) Dai
Optical Communications Research Group (OCRG), Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Northumbria University, UK
Introduction
Proposed Solution
Railway safety is the future sustainable development
to balancing social and economic impacts. To ensure
safe and cost-effective train operations in the rail
transportation industry, it is essential to monitor both
traffic levels and health condition of the rail-track in
real-time. According to UK rail regulations, During
2013/2014, the British national PPM (public
performance measurement) percentage is very low as
84.5% compared to target PPM 90.70% and railway
maintenance costs spent around 26% of total
operating costs for rail-track maintenance.
The proposed DOFS system based on stimulated
Brillouin scattering has a potential to offer greater
detection reliability such as invisible cracks in realtime. In addition, we can also monitor the train speed,
train weight, misalignments in train wheels and train
location. The DOFS sensing system allows higher
sensing range of 120 km with 1m spatial resolution and
high measurement accuracy compared to fibre Bragg
grating (FBG) and Raman sensor systems.
British PPM performance
Results and Discussions
Operating Principle and Proposed System
The Passenger’s pound
Rail network costs(22p)
Track Maintenance(26p)
Staff costs (25p)
Other costs (9p)
Leasing trains (11p)
Fuel for trains (4p)
Company profits (3p)
Pump
Probe
Sensing fibre
To Detector
Source: Network rail group
Problem Statement
The worst train accidents occurred on rail-track
recently, even inspected the rail-track by current
generation of technology. Train accidents and train
delays/cancellations occur mostly from rail-track
structural deformations.
Fig. 1: Operating principle of DOFS sensing system
CW (Probe) Wave
Optical Filter
Sensing
Fiber
50/50
50/50
Coupler
Pulse (Pump) Wave
PC2
EOM 2
Circulator
PS
EDFA
Electrical Cable
Optical Fiber
Fig. 3: Three- dimensional Brillouin gain spectrum (BGS) of sensing
fibre (a) without strain (b) with 0.2% strain
Fig. 3 shows a Brillouin gain spectrum (BGS) of
sensing fibre without strain and 0.2% applied strain on
fibre. The strained section frequency was shifted from
12.90 GHz to 13.02 GHz. Therefore, for 0.2% applied
strain, the frequency shift was found 120 MHz. The
Brillouin frequency shift (BFS) has strong linear
relationship with applied strain and/or temperature
along the sensing fibre.
Conclusion
Isolator
Micro wave Generator
DFB-LD
(b)
EDFA
PC1
EOM 1
(a)
PD
Pulse Generator
RF Amplifier
The proposed DOFS sensing system improves the
British national PPM percentage and reduces the
heavy rail-track maintenance costs. As a result, the
British train operating companies will be reduces the
passenger’s ticket pricing, while providing high
standards of safety. These experimental research
results will be attractive to the British railway
industries to achieve real-time rail-track monitoring
and assisting railway economic development.
Acknowledgement
Trigger
Oscilloscope
Fig. 2: Proposed DOFS system block diagram for measuring strain and
temperature along the rail-track
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Northumbria Research Conference- May, 2015
The authors are sincerely grateful for the support of
Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering,
Northumbria University.