Combined Acoustic Emission and Digital Image Correlation for Early Detection and Measurement of Fatigue Cracks in Rails and Train Parts under Dynamic Loading.

Fatigue crack in rails and cyclic-loaded train parts is a contributory factor in multiple railroad accidents. We address the problem of crack detection and measurement at early stages, when total failure has not yet occurred. We propose to combine acoustic emission (AE) testing for prediction of crack growth with digital image correlation (DIC) for its accurate quantitative characterization.