Condition Monitoring of H e avy-Axl e Load Rail c ar Stru
1 Railroad Engineering Program, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory 205 N. Mathews Ave., Urbana IL, 61801 USA 2 School of EECS, Oregon State University, Kelly Engineering Center, Corvallis OR, 97331 USA 3 Department of E lectrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Vision and Robotics Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, 405 N. Mathews Ave., Urbana IL, 61801 USA
Multispectral Machine Vision for Improved Undercarriage Inspection of Railroad Rolling Stock
Multispectral machine vision systems have the potential to provide mechanical inspection personnel with a tool to automatically assess and monitor the condition of rolling stock. By incorporating the visible and infrared spectra with machine vision algorithms, such a system can analyze physical and thermal condition. If a machine vision algorithm determines that a component is outside its normal operating range, the other spectrum can be analyzed to determine if there is any correlated anomaly. We present preliminary results on a project developing multispectral machine vision technology for inspection of the undercarriage of rolling stock. We have developed a system to record digital video images from a below-track perspective, and several machine vision algorithms to identify and analyze features of interest in these images.
Physical Ageing of the Research Reactor Core Structural Materials Due to Neutron Irradiation Exposure: a Review
A research reactor (RR) is a  nuclear reactor that has function to generate and utilize neutron flux and radiation ionization for  research purposes and industrial applications. More than 60% of current operating RRs have  been operated for 30 years or more. As the time passes, the functional capabilities of structures,  systems and components (SSCs) of those RRs deteriorate by physical ageing, which can be  caused by neutron irradiation exposure such as irradiation induced dislocation and  microstructural changes. To extend the lifetime and/or to avoid unplanned outages, ageing on  the safety related SSCs of RRs need to be properly managed. An ageing management is a  strategy to engineer, operate, maintenance, and control SSC degradation within acceptable limits. The purpose of this study is to review physical ageing of the core structural materials of  the RRs caused by neutron irradiation exposure. In order to achieve this objective, a wide range  of literatures are reviewed. Comprehensive discussions on irradiation behaviors are limited only  on reactor vessel and core support structure materials made from zirconium and beryllium as  well as their alloys, which are widely used in RRs. It is found that the stability of the mechanical  properties of zirconium and beryllium as well as their alloys was mostly affected by the neutron  fluences and temperatures.