A study on wavelet analysis of railway track geometry

Murat Vergi Taciroğlu; Hakan Işıker

doi:10.53635/jit.1746351

A study on wavelet analysis of railway track geometry

Abstract

Repeated train passages and environmental conditions cause deterioration of the geometric conditions of railway lines. When track geometry graphs are examined, it is seen that railway tracks have a rough, wavy form due to geometric deterioration. The wavy form of the track geometry contains many geometric defects of different wavelengths. However, these defects cannot be accurately detected with assessments based on threshold values specified in standards such as EN 13848. In this study, an approach based on the wavelet analysis method is proposed to determine geometric defects of different wavelengths in track geometry. For this purpose, the frequency spectrum of the measured longitudinal level data was first plotted and the highest frequency values were determined. The obtained frequency values were used to generate “Mexican Hat” functions, making the geometric data suitable for wavelet analysis. In the final stage, the locations of defects of different wavelengths were determined based on their frequencies as a result of the analysis. The results show that geometric defects of different wavelengths that cannot be detected by tolerance-based assessment methods in track geometry graphs can be detected along with their locations using the wavelet analysis method.

Keywords

References

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Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Rail Transportation and Freight Services

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Murat Vergi Taciroğlu ^*
0000-0002-0672-1672
Türkiye

Hakan Işıker
0000-0002-6465-8480
Türkiye

Publication Date

December 16, 2025

Submission Date

July 20, 2025

Acceptance Date

October 16, 2025

Published in Issue

Year 2025 Volume: 6 Number: 2

DOI

https://doi.org/10.53635/jit.1746351

IZ

https://izlik.org/JA35JG44GD

Cite

RIS / Bibtex

APA

Taciroğlu, M. V., & Işıker, H. (2025). A study on wavelet analysis of railway track geometry. Journal of Innovative Transportation, 6(2), 50-55. https://doi.org/10.53635/jit.1746351