CREARE LLC — Department of Transportation SBIR Phase I: 171FR2

Description

Broken rails are a common cause of mainline derailments and a particular concern given the increasing use of our rail system for passenger traffic and petroleum products. The progressive nature of the defects provides an opportunity for early detection of cracks before they become significant enough to cause a derailment. Unfortunately, current inspection technology does not allow these inspections to be performed during normal rail operations. Creare’s RailMonitor System supplements the periodic inspections performed by track inspection cars by enabling every train to perform rail inspection during the normal course of operations to enable detection of early stage rail cracks before they fail and cause a catastrophic derailment. The RailMonitor uses a novel imaging approach that provides a highly accurate, convenient, and inexpensive method of rail inspection. The system is designed to provide sensitive detection of rail cracks while minimizing the number of false detections due to normal joints between rail segments.