Static and dynamic weighing of rolling stocks by mean of a customized FBG-Sensorized-Patch

The structural health monitoring (SHM) of an infrastructure is of fundamental importance for the structure and people safety. Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors allow to design for each application, a tailored array of quasi-distributed sensors integrated to the infrastructure. To ensure the structural integrity of the railways is crucial to verify that the infrastructures comply with safety requirements to carry out their task. Railways rolling stock must comply with speed limits, the maximum number of wagons, maximum weight limit distributed on each axis of the wagons and the allowed number of trains on specific routes. The identification of the vertical load acting on each wheel is fundamental for the safety of a rolling-stock moving on a railway line. This paper presents the results of a test campaign on sensitive smart patches for static and dynamic weighing of trains. The system aims to generate a gripping system based on the magnetic force of a plastoferrite patch, taking advantage of the peculiarity that the rails are made of ferritic steel. This solution has the benefit of simplifying and speeding up the installation process and enabling a fast and easy removal or change in the configuration of the sensors array on the rail.