Acoustic Internal Automated Concrete Tie Tester

NDT Corp. will take the currently developed ACTT system, which can accurately assess the internal condition of concrete crossties and increase its speed.FRA 23-FR1 requests a system that at high speeds can assess both the internal and external condition of concrete crossties.Currently there are systems that can perform the external assessment at the required speeds.However, there is no system that can perform the internal assessment at these speeds.NDT Corp. has already developed and verified a procedure and system that can accurately assess the internal condition concrete crossties using a form of pulse velocity testing at a limited speed of 3 mph.For Phase I NDT Corp. proposes to take the parts of the ACTT device that are limiting its speed and advance them so that the ACTT system will be able to collect data at high speed.This will require changing the energy source from the current tapper to a noncontact method and accurately capturing the crosstie response at speed which will require advancing the microphone and noise reduction procedures.Phase I will be to advance the ACTT system to the required speeds to perform the complete crosstie inspection with the already existing external systems.