TPU Professor Vladimir Vavilov, the head of R&D Laboratory for Thermal Control says: "Now, all railways in Russia are electrified, there is a great number of supports for wires and auxiliary equipment along the railways. Like any construction, they have their service life, which is 50 years. As the service life expires, the supports become unfit for use with obvious negative consequences. It is impossible to replace all supports simultaneously. Therefore, it is necessary to identify those that should be replaced first. Ultrasonic testing is traditionally used for this purpose. Such testing takes up to one day. We propose thermal testing. Here the process takes a few minutes and about an hour together with all preparation works."

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More information: Dmitry Sannikov et al. Evaluating the Quality of Reinforced Concrete Electric Railway Poles by Thermal Nondestructive Testing, Applied Sciences (2018). DOI: 10.3390/app8020222