68 Investigation of RailBAM microphone array directivity*

Supervisor:

Dr Uwe Kopke (Vipac) and Dr Anthony Zander

Moderator:

 

Students:

2-3

Description:

Derailments of trains caused by wheel bearing faults is a significant issue in the train and transport industry. Trains often consist of 80-100 wagons with around 1,600 bearings. The failure of just one bearing poses a significant safety risk. Vipac Engineers & Scientists Ltd has developed a new Bearing Acoustic Monitoring (BAM) system for the railway industry, RailBAM, to detect and rank axle bearing faults and wheel flats and provide advanced warning of failure.

This

project is aimed at improving the directivity of the RailBAM system, which utilises an array of microphones to remotely detect bearing faults and wheel flats in the wheels of rail carriages. This project will be focussed on improving the directivity of the microphone array in the vertical direction so that it can more effectively see the acoustic signature of the bearings. The project work will include: developing an improved design for the microphone array housing and developing novel techniques for mounting the microphones and their associated cabling within the RailBAM housing; modelling the acoustics of the RailBAM system geometry; and experimentally testing the directivity of the proposed design.

Industrial Sponsor:

Vipac Engineers & Scientists Pty Ltd.