SAFETEA-LU requires each railway track operator using continuous welded rail track to include procedures to improve the identification of cracks as well as improve the methods of inspection of joint bars in continuous welded rail.
The EFS system is capable of locating very small, actively growing cracks in metal structures. It is the only practical nondestructive evaluation system currently available to engineers that can provide such insight. If a fatigue crack is not growing, EFS will not produce any signal.
Monitoring rail joint bars is an ideal application for EFS; its sensors can be applied to the bars, and as a train rolls over the rail joint, the sensors will indicate the presence of any growing cracks.
About Material Technologies, Inc.
Matech is an engineering, research and development company specializing in technologies to measure microscopic fractures and flaws in metal structures and monitor metal fatigue in real time. We have exclusive rights to seven patents along with 8.3 million in already awarded contracts from the U.S. Government for research, testing and validating of our technology.