FBG stress-sensibilized monitor for railway switch pole on-line monitoring

The fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensing technology is used to dynamically monitor multiple parameters of railway switch machine poles, including time of movement, direction and quantity of loading and locking force, and states of loading resistance. This paper presents the design and implementation of a railway switch pole strain on-line monitoring system based on the FBG stress-sensibilized monitor for a Siemens S700K switch machine. The ring shape FBG strain gauge and stress-sensibilized methods significantly increased the monitoring sensitivity. Installing approaches adapted the harsh environment in the railway application. The monitoring results showed the high sensitivity and high reliability of this monitoring system. This application provides a long-term and on-line detecting method which could meet railway switch condition monitoring demands of more than 100,000 switch machines in the country.