Railway condition monitoring and analysis of settlements using InSAR

Purpose and goal

The project will investigate InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic-Aperture Radar) to complement existing methods of railway condition monitoring and preventive maintenance. The purpose of the study is to analyze historical InSAR data on railway tracks and the factors that can affect track condition: geotechnical, geological, climate-related and structural. The goal of the project is to understand and anticipate settlement related problems for railway infrastructure through these techniques.

Expected effects and result

The project will contribute with new techniques within InSAR to complement railway condition monitoring. The research will contribute to knowledge of accelerating factors to settlement, giving larger margins for maintenance planning. The results can be used in the construction phase, for example by choosing areas with good prerequisites. Using methods from the project, causes for repeated misalignment can be investigated, which can be used as decision support for large maintenance investments.

Planned approach and implementation

The project has three sub-projects investigating track condition on a national and regional level and for a few relevent track sections that repeatedly have vertical misalignment. The project begins with the national study. Since the results from the other two sub-projects may have an impact on the national study, it will continue through the whole project period. The research will use GIS tools to investigate the correlation between measured differential settlements and accelerating factors.