Austrian network operator ÖBB-Infrastruktur has carried out research projects in cooperation with various universities and companies to optimise the maintenance of railway infrastructure. One focus is on the development of the Tunnel Drainage Rover (TDR), an inspection robot that can inspect drainage pipes in railway tunnels without interrupting operations. The TDR, which was developed in collaboration with the Johannes Kepler University Linz and the Montanuniversität Leoben, has already passed tests under real conditions. ÖBB-Infrastruktur is also working on the automated recording of the preload force of bolted connections on switches in order to increase their availability. In cooperation with Revotec, intelligent measuring systems known as e-bolts have been developed for this purpose. These solutions could replace the manual measurement of the tightening torque that was previously carried out every six months during shutdowns. Another project deals with the detection of defects in austenitic Mn-13 switch frogs, which cannot be reliably identified using conventional ultrasonic testing. To this end, research is being carried out in collaboration with the University of Leoben, Materials Center Leoben Forschung GmbH and Voestalpine on inductively pulsed phase thermography (piTh), which provides information on the condition of the material by analysing the temperature distribution.
