CRACK DETECTION SYSTEM ON RAILWAY TRACKS

THE SYNOPSIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE

THIRD YEAR OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

CONFERRED BY,
UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI

BHOIR SANDESH DHANAJI

ABHISHEK BHAGAT
KARAN GAIKAR

VERIFIED BY

PROF. SNEHA BADOLE

INDALA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

KALYAN

UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI 2023-2024

1
 Department of CIVIL ENGINEERING

Indala College of Engineering Bapsai, Kalyan-Murbad Road,

Kalyan -421103

University of Mumbai (AY 2024-25)

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the Mini Project entitled “ RAILWAY TRACK

CRACK DETECTION SYSTEM ” is a bonafide work of submitted to

the University of Mumbai in partial fulfillment of the requirement for

the award of the degree of “Bachelor of Engineering” in “CIVIL

ENGINEERING”

Guide : Head Of The Department

Prof. SNEHA BADOLE Prof.
 Mini Project Approval

This Mini Project entitled “RAILWAY TRACK CRACK

DETECTION SYSTEM"

by students is approved for the degree of Bachelor of

Engineering in Information Technology.

Examiners

1………………………………………
(Internal Examiner Name & Sign)

2………………………………………
(External Examiner name & Sign)

Date:

Place:
 INDEX

Sr. No Title Page No

1 Introduction 5
2 Main body / Content 6
3 Conclusion 15
4 Reference 16
 INTRODUCTION

Railway is one of the most significant transportation modes of

our country but it is a matter of great sorrow that, railway tracks of our
country are very prone. That’s why, a vast number of accidents are
occurred every year due to this primitive type of railway tracks and as
the consequences of those accidents we lose huge number of lives
every year.

These types of incidents motivate us to think over the above

mentioned issue and take necessary steps toprotect those lives.
Through our proposed system, we need to establish more modern and
secure railway system. Besides this, there is no such type of
technology or system in our country which can stop the collision
between two trains coming from the opposite direction of each other
on the same track. We actually think over this matter and motivated to
do so. Moreover natural disaster can throw any object on the rail track
which cannot be removed very quickly in the remote area. We thought
if our system can detect those object or barrier and inform to the
control room then they can take necessary steps 3 to avoid accident.
Figure1 depicts the crack on track. The Rail transport is growing at a
rapid pace in India. It is one of the major mode of transport but still our
facilities are not that accurate, safer as compared to international
standards. A survey on the internet states that about 60% of all the
railway accidents is due to derailments, recent measurements shows
that about 90% are due to cracks on the rails. Hence, it is not safer for
Human Life. This needs to be at the utmost attention. These goes
unnoticed and the properly maintenance of tracks is not done. In
previously existing system, the work is to be done manually, but the
proposed system has a robot which will run automatically on the
tracks. System having LED and LDR sensor assembly, but the main
disadvantage is that the LED and LDR must be placed opposite to each
other and also the environment needs to be perfect to detect the track.
To overcome this
disadvantage, here sensors are used, which will detect the
crack accurately. The existing system is slow, tedious and time
consuming. This system has GSM and GPS module which will give
the real time
 location orcoordinates in the form of Short Message Service
(SMS) to the nearest railway station.
 MAIN BODY / CONTENT

A. Train accident statistics

Table- I shows statistics of the number of injuries caused due to train
accidents.
Table-I: statistics of the number of injuries caused due to train accidents.

depicts the number of deaths due to rail accidents. As it can be

observed from Figure 2, the number of deaths is increasing year to
year. Hence there is a great need for technical solution to the problem
of rail cracks.
 METHODOLOGY

The main aim of project is to design the railway crack detection

using Ultrasonic sensors. The project block diagram is shown in Figure
3, which contains microcontroller (Arduino), ultrasonic sensor, motor
driver, motor, GPS module when the crack is detected, relevant
geographical location coordinates will sent to the nearest station. This
recording and sending of coordinates are done by GPS module. GPS
network used by cell phones provides a low cost, long range wireless
communication channel for applications that require connectivity
rather than higher data rates. Infrared transmitter is one type of the
LED which emits infrared rays generally called IR transmitter.

Figure. 3. Rail track detection

Ultrasonic sensor is used to detect the crack in the rail track with
measuring the distance from track to sensor. Ultrasonic technique is the
most effective method which detects cracks on a railway track. An
android application will be developed to intimate about the rail cracks.
As and when a rail crack is detected by the crack detection system, the
corresponding loco pilot will be intimated through a pop-up message.
This pop- up notification service will be implementing with the help of
GPS module
 A. Process of the rail track system

The project block diagram is shown in Figure 4, which contains

following process
Initially the tracks are being continuously monitored with the help of
sensor, which is used to detect the crack in the track.
This monitoring is done with the help of ultrasonic sensor in order to
sense the minor changes also which can be quite difficult with other
sensors.
a) Whenever the crack gets detected with the help of ultrasonic
sensor it passes the alert of crack found to the Arduino
microcontroller.
b) The Arduino microcontroller will perform the process assigned to
it accordingly.
c) The process mainly includes positioning, sending and alerting
through the help of GPS module.
d) As the message gets delivered to the Railway Authority, the alert
is to be taken into account and important measures must be taken by
them in order to avoid future incidents and miss happenings which can
lead to loss of human life and also to major injuries
.
 ARCHITECTURE

Figure. 5. Circuit diagram of system design

 The project block diagram is shown in Figure 5, which contains
microcontroller (Arduino), ultrasonicsensor, motor driver, motor, GPS
module. Initially the system will move on the track using motor ,motor
is givenpower through a motor driver and commanded through
Arduino controller. Whenever there is crack
detection the motor will stop and the system will halt on the track. The
crack is detected using ultrasonic sensor. After the crack detection the
location data is to be sent to control room. GPS modules are used to
get precise location of the car. This location is fed to controller. After
successful delivery of message to control room, controller provides a
signal to motor driver initiating the motor and hence car starts to move
on the track. This process continues till the operator turns the system
off.
 MODEL IMPLEMENTATION

A) Construction of circuit

Figure. 6. Circuit Connection for System design

The main objective is to define any railway track fault using this
system, which is implemented in effective and will also function
efficiently. This method will be helpful in regular track checking as it
is more convenient than the handheld checking system. The current
system has a railway labourer walking on the railway tracks and
detecting the fault manually.In Figure 6 here we are using ardino for
control action to make system we are connecting Ultrasonic senssors
and IR sensors to detect the obstacle and we are connecting dc motors,
gps module is used .This requires a lot of time and labour. So we are
using abUltrasonic sensors and IR sensors for railway track crack
detection. The testing vehicle consists of motors driven by a motor
driver . The IR, and Ultrasonic sensor which is connected to the
Arduino. Message is generated using GSM and GPS and will be sent
to the nearby station.
A) Arduino uno

Arduino is an open source programmable circuit board based on top of

easy to use hardware and software. The above Figure 7 depicts arduino
uno. It is tough in nature and can support the peripherals efficiently. It is
centered on ATmega328. It has 14 digital input/output pins 6 analog
inputs, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset
button. The power essential to run the board can supply through
connecting it to the laptop using a USB cable or plugging an ACDC
power supply.

Figure. 7. Arduino Uno

A. GPS module

Figure. 8. GPS Modem

 A satellite navigation system used to position the ground place
of an object. The above figure 8 shows a GPS modem. A GPS
receiver calculates the position by timing the signals send by the
GPS satellites high above the earth. The position is then displayed
through moving map display or latitude and longitude. By the GPS
module longitude and latitude

Figure. 9. Display of latitude and longitude value

Motor Driver: L298N

The L298N is a dual H-Bridge motor driver this allows speed and
direction control of two DC motors at the same time. Motor L298N
driver contains an IC as shown in the figure 10. The module can drive
DC motors that have voltages among 5 and 35V, with a peak current
capable of 2A.

Figure. 10. Motor Driver (L298N)

B.Generating a system

In the system crack in the tracks is detected by means of sensor

and Arduino microcontroller, measuring distance for two railroads. In
this project we have used ultrasonic sensors to detect the crack. The
below figure 11 shows system for detecting the crack using ultrasonic
sensors. It uses to measure the distance between the two tracks. If any
crack occurred in the track means latitude and longitude coordinates of
the place are to be sent to the nearest railway station or control room
and ultrasonic sensor measured the
of the processing technique. The crack detection can be made of two
ways. They are Destructive Testing and Non- Destructive testing. It
is part of a vision system, generating a crack map to support
condition monitoring for buildings. distance between the two tracks
if there is any variance found the message which contains
coordinates of that particular place will be sent to the nearest station
or control room with the help of GPS module. This project is to be
made in order to change the system of crack detection in railways
which can be resulted out as not only cost-effective but also with
good accuracy and time saving facility.

Figure. 11. system to detect rail track

1. Initially the tracks are being continuously monitored with the

help of sensor, which is used to detect the crack inside the track.
2. This monitoring is done with the help of ultrasonic sensor in
order to sense the minor changes also which canbe quite difficult
with
 other sensors.
3.Whenever the crack gets detected with the help of ultrasonic
sensor it passes the alert of crack found to the Arduino
microcontroller.
4. The Arduino microcontroller will perform the processassigned to
it accordingly.
5. The process mainly includes positioning, sending and alerting
through the help of GPS module.
6. As message gets delivered to the Railway Authority, the alert
is to be taken into account and important measures must be taken
by them in order to avoid future incidents and miss happenings
which can lead to loss of human life and also to major injuries.

APPLICATIONS

Railway track crack detection system has beenapplied for

different application areas are listed below.

o AUTOMATIC CRACK CHECKING-

Rail Crack detection is the processof detecting a crack in the

structures using any
The suggested method uses successively radiometric, geometric and
contextual information. The vehicle draws power from the battery. The
optical sensor is used to detectthe crack in the railway track. Suppose
any racks are in the track the vehicle will automatically stop.

o WIRELESS APPLICATION

Wireless application protocol (WAP) is the communications

protocol that is used for wireless data access through the most mobile
wireless network
WAP enhances wireless specification interoperability and facilitates
instant connectivity between interactive wireless devices (such as
mobile phones) and the Internet. Wireless Application Protocol is a
technical standard for the accessing information over a mobile wireless
network.
A WAP browser is web browser for mobile devices such as mobile
phones that uses the protocols. Though WAP is a new technology, but it
reuses the concepts found in the Internet.

o RAILWAY TRACK DAMAGE DETECTION

APPLICATIONS

A railway damage detection and measurementsystem using

neural networks. Railway- defects and damages often cause train
accidents. Experimental resultshows that this neural network based
measurementsystem has high precision and is suitable for online
railway damage detection and measurementapplications. A list of
methods used to detect flaws in railways: Ultrasound -is the most
popular method. Eddycurrent inspections - great for surface flaw &
near surfaceflaws. Magnetic Particle Inspection- used for detailed
manual inspections. Ultrasonic sensor is used todetect the crack on the
railway track by not receiving theecho from the track; if the echo sound
is received then nocrack is detected on the track. The output of
ultrasonicsensors is given to the microcontroller, which isconnected to
the GPS, motor driver IC.

*Advantages*
System will help to reduce accidents caused due to railway cracks.
This system helps track inspection coach to complete track inspection
faster.
No Manual intervention needed.

*Disadvantages*
User must provide good image. System will not work properly with
damaged image.
Low Accuracy on improper lighting.
 CONCLUSION
As per the study the existing systems are time consuming as
well as uneconomical. The proposed system is not only overcome
these problems but also improve accuracy and crack detection in
rails. It is the most economical solution provided in order to achieve
good results of railways of our country in order to minimize the stats
of accidents caused. There by possible to save precious lives of
passengers and loss of economy. It also saves the time and money
for identification of crack.
 REFERENCES

[1] A. Rizvi, P. Khan and D. Ahmad, "Crack Detection In Railway

Track Using Image Processing", International Journal of
Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology., vol.
3, no. 4, 2017.
[2] S. Srivastava, R. Chaurasia, S. Abbas, P. Sharma and N. Singh,
"Railway Track Crack Detection Vehicle", International
Advanced Research Journal in Science, Engineering and
Technology, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 145-148, 2017.
[3] [3] K.Bhargavi and M. Janardhana Raju "Railway Track Crack
Detection Using Led-Ldr Assembly“, International Journal of
Advanced Research in Electronics and Communication
Engineering (IJARECE), vol. 3, no. 9, pp. 1230-1234, 2014.
[4] [4] B. Siva Ram Krishna, D. Seshendia, G. Govinda Raja, T.
Sudharshan and K. Srikanth, "Railway Track Fault
DetectionSystem By Using IR Sensors And Blutooth
Technology", Asian Journal of Applied Science and Technology
(AJAST), vol. 1, no. 6, pp. 82-84, 2017.
[5] [5] P.Navaraj, "Crack Detection System For Railway Track By
Using Ultrasonic And Pir Sensor", vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 126-130,
2014.
[6] [6] D.Narendhar Singh and D. Naresh, "Railway Track Crack
Detection And Data Analysis", vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 1859-1863,
2017.
[7] [7] 2017. Available: https://m.timesofindia.com/india/586- train-
accidents-in-last-5-years-53-due-to
derailments/amp_articleshow/60141578.cms.