Risk Assessment Method for High-Speed Railway Track Based on Dynamically Weighted Acceleration

As railway maintenance increasingly requires strict inspection and accurate repair, it is urgent to establish a reasonable assessment method for identifying the risks in high-speed railways. Severe track irregularities can intensify the vibration of vehicles and infrastructure and reduce vehicle stability and ride comfort. To more accurately identify the risks in railway tracks, this paper presents the acceleration indexes associated with ride comfort and an acceleration-based track quality index (ATQI) method. The proposed method involves a dynamic weighting factor that can extract the most sensitive information from acceleration and geometrical parameters. Results show that the weight change reflected the cumulative effect of fluctuation in each parameter in the past periods. In a case study, the ATQI method was able to identify seven risky sections that exceed the limit value, while only four risky sections were identified by the conventional track quality index. This demonstrates that the ATQI is more effective and efficient in predicting risks than the track quality index.