Railway Surveys
Roadscanners provides network and project level GPR surveys and services for railway structure investigations. The GPR method efficiently provides continuous information about the railway structure thickness, such as ballast, sub-ballast and embankment layers. Material quality properties like ballast fouling, mud pumping and structural moisture anomalies can be also analyzed from the data. Surveys are performed using 2D or 3D GPR, laser scanning instruments, GPS and digital videos installed on the railway engine or hy-rail vehicle.
When locating problematic areas on railways it is important to integrate data from different sources. Integrated analysis of structural information by means of GPR and condition data from track geometry and stiffness measurements helps to locate the problematic areas and to define the root causes of the defects. All analyses are done using Roadscanners Road Doctor™ software products.
Roadscanners has been doing research and development (R&D) in order to develop inspection methods for railway material parameters such as ballast fouling, frost susceptibility potential and moisture condition of granular layers. Most of the R&D work has been done in co-operation with the Finnish Transport Agency and the Tampere University of Technology. Other research partners in railway projects have been HyGround Engineering in USA, the University of Pretoria in South Africa, TTCI in USA and the National Technical University of Athens in Greece.
Since 2003 Roadscanners Oy has successfully conducted railway GPR surveys over 12 000 track kilometers for several railway companies in Scandinavia, USA, South Africa and Southern Europe.
Reference projects:
1. HyGround / Amtrak, USA 2010
Substructure assessment and analysis with GPR, track geometry, lidar and video data on Amtrak’s joint-use high-speed rail corridor between Philadelphia-Washington.
2. HyGround / New York City Transit / HDR, USA 2010
Performed investigation and diagnosis of problem embankment, including GPR survey, DCP testing and laboratory testing, modeling, analysis and recommendations.
3. Finnish Transport Agency, Finland 2009
Ground Penetrating Radar investigations on Heavy Haul lines in Northern Finland. Track structure GPR surveys of upgraded heavy traffic lines in Northern Finland including thickness interpretations, fouling analysis and laboratory analysis of fouling samples and localization of drainage problems.
4. Finnish Transport Agency, Finland 2008
Quality control of new railway structures using 3D GPR in Southern Finland. Quality control surveys on new railway double-track between Kerava-Lahti using 3D GPR system. The purpose of the project was to comparison of designed structure thickness to realized structures.
5. Swedish Rail Authority Banverket, Sweden 2007
2D and 3D GPR surveys and integrated analysis of railway structures (layers, track geometry, track stiffness) in Swedish railway network for analyzing the status of existing railway lines.