The early stage wheel fatigue crack detection using eddy current pulsed thermography

The in-service wheel-set quality is one of critical challenges for railway safety, especially for the high-speed train. The defect in wheel tread, initiated by rolling contact fatigue (RCF) damage, is one of the most significant phenomena and has serious influence on rail industry. Eddy current pulsed thermography is studied to compensate the UT method for detection these early stage of fatigue cracks in wheel tread surface. This paper proposes approximately uniform magnetic field, excited by Helmholtz coils, based pulsed eddy current thermography to achieve open-view image and meet the irregular surface in wheel tread through numerical way. Some features are extracted and studied also to quantify the fatigue crack in term of eddy current pulsed thermography. The proposed method enhances the capability for cracks detection and quantitative evaluation compared with previous NDT method in railway.