Track geometry bear huge static and dynamic forces that accelerate degradation process. As a result, railway track should be inspected regularly to detect geometry faults and to plan maintenance actions in advanced. An inspection plan that minimizes track maintenance cost is highly desirable by infrastructure managers. This paper proposes constructing an integrated model to identify the optimum track geometry inspection interval. To this end, it develops a long term prediction model combining degradation, shock event, and tamping recovery models. It applies the Wiener process to model track geometry degradation, simulates shock event times using an exponential distribution, and uses a probabilistic model to model recovery after tamping. With the proposed integrated model and simulation, it is possible to identify the optimum track geometry inspection frequencies that minimize total track maintenance costs.
Godkänd; 2016; 20160826 (solmei)