Accelerometer Placement Comparison for Crack Detection in Railway Axles Using Vibration Signals and Machine Learning

In this paper, a methodology for accelerometer placement comparison for crack detection in railway axles, using vibration signals and machine learning, was shown. Different vibration signals from six accelerometers were obtained by several conditions of load and speed, with crack depths in axles from 5.7 to 15 mm. This paper describes three stages: acquisition, processing, and analysis. The findings suggest that using the vertical or longitudinal accelerometer located in left allow obtaining higher accuracy than 90% with three features, also called condition indicators. On the other hand, an accuracy such as 96.43% is obtained using a left vertical sensor and 95,98% using a left longitudinal sensor, both with ten features. With this methodology, high accuracy in crack detection was obtained using an accelerometer effective placement. Different vibration signals using six accelerometers were obtained, under several conditions of load and speed, with crack depths in axles from 5.7 to 15 mm.