Ultrasonic imaging of solid railway wheels

This work presents an ultrasonic non-destructive technique for in service railway wheels inspection. To overcome the problem of accessibility to critical regions where cracks may appear this method uses phased-array with immersion coupling, which allows carrying out the inspection process on non-dismantled wheels sets. The acquired frames are subjected to compound imaging methods in order to improve the automatic detection of cracks. The proposed method provides low inspection time, high image quality and reliable crack detection capabilities.