Innovations – simple, obtuse and far-reaching – IV

This one is for the Railway industry.

The idea itself occurred many years ago and I had shared this with Vichu and Gulpa Athans among others. The first person with whom I shared this, was one Dr. Arun (I don’t remember the second name), who said that he was the Director (R&D) of TISCO (Tata Iron and Steel Co.) This happened in the year 2004 while we both were co-passengers in a flight.

It had been bothering me since, so I thought I might as well get it out of my system by giving it some concrete shape which is necessary if it needed to come in the form of a blog.

To re-create the conversation on the flight –

….. (and, yes I remember this was quick on the heels of a major railway accident in which not less than 50 lives were lost and track failure was identified as a root cause!)

Me: “Dr. Arun, do you make rail steel?”

Dr. Arun: “No, we don’t, but why do you ask?”

Me: “Well, it just occurred to me that this accident (showing him the newspaper) would have been eminently avoidable given the state of technology today”

Dr. Arun remained stoic and gave me look which said “Oh Yeah?”

Me: “Well, doctor, what do you think of embedding fibre-optic cables in railway tracks?”

(and you now may realize in hindsight that the fibre-optic connectivity in India was on a boom at that time, what with Reliance, Tatas, Birlas and the Bhartis all exploring every possible avenue to pump fibre.  Roads all over Indian cities being dug up left-right and center for this purpose)

Dr. Arun: “Yes, it is a good prospect, but for fear of being caught in Govt. Red tape, nobody wants to enter that space.”

He appeared to show interest as he thought I was another telecom executive looking to sell a business idea. Possibly, he had the following configuration in mind –

This was a known configuration to lay cables alongside the track and use the rail network connectivity to provide a fibre-optic backbone for the nation. (the red circle represents a bundle of fibre-optic cables). Dr. Arun thought that I had used the word “embed” as managementese.

I don’t know if this is done even as on date, but back then this was expected to be an immense potential for public private partnership and today possibly is a cause for concern due to “other” political reasons as is common with most railway projects.

Me: “Dr. Arun, are you sure? Because if this were known and even tested or tried, how come no one is talking about it as a means to avert the accidents, I just showed you in the newspaper?”

Dr. Arun: (Slightly, perplexed at the thought that maybe he was missing something there) “So what’s the link? I understand that when there is an accident then the communication line on the track will be disrupted and we will know that there was an accident at the earliest. How does this prevent the accident?” (Hinting that he had noticed the use of the word “avert” in my seemingly casual statement)

Me: “Well, Dr. Arun, my idea was that rail steel should be “embedded” with a fibre-optic cable in the following configuration at the manufacturing stage itself.”

 Dr. Arun: (Looking at the hastily sketched image and realizing there is something here) “So, go on we don’t make rail steel but this configuration is interesting” – Dr. Arun had specialized in metallurgy.

Me: (now excited at the prospect of an ear to download my thoughts) “Sir, if we can make a 5-9 mm hole in one or both of the two places shown in the profile of the rail track and pump raw fibre through it then by matching the instantaneous vibration profile with the previously characterized vibration profiles of the track through the cable we can predict if there is a crack initiation throughout the entire rail length by analyzing the optical signal and this can be real time and automated!”(Phew! I thought, all that was in my mind was now out and Dr. Arun would understand the rest)

Dr. Arun: (Now, reasonably certain that I wasn’t bullshitting or making small talk) “Slow, slow, can you repeat this a little more slowly and in a step by step fashion?”

(For a detailed understanding read the article by Japanese Railway linked later)

Me: “Yes Sir, (showing him the sketch of a proposed scheme,shown above) if we can make the rail as suggested above, it will   look like this when viewed from top , shown by black lines, with the red line with blue border indicating the fibre.

When a laser signal (I had by now told Dr. Arun, that I had worked with lasers for a decade and this lent credibility to my words) is injected from one end, we will get a normal vibration profile (shown in the topmost box above the box marked “vibration profile” in the sketch)  if there is no crack in the rail or any deformity in the rail. Whenever, the smallest defect appears in the rail, the vibration profile (shown in the box immediately above the box marked “vibration profile”) will change dramatically.

In other words the system is like a continuously running ECG for the rail and at the sign of an abnormality, we can know exactly which section of the rail is defective and immediately take action, before it progresses into a catastrophe. It is my guess that between the initiation of the crack and the final failure there will be more than enough time to take action. It goes without saying that any sabotage can be detected instantaneously. Signaling can be entirely handled and as technology refines, communication can be channeled……” (I was on a trip!)

……

Dr. Arun left after giving me his phone number and asking me if I was willing to join him and I remained lost in thoughts on what could be the possible impediments in converting this dream to a reality.

Coming back to the innovation, I have many times dismissed this thought as something “foolhardy” because if there is any “dum” (strength) in it, I felt it would already have been explored in this world filled with technology experts and safety gurus.

Some thoughts that worried me are listed and before you get disappointed let me tell you that I have a reasonably detailed idea of a resolution for each of these by this time –

1.      How will the hole be manufactured? (My search on the net tells me that tracks are of standard lengths of 13 and 26 metres by and large. We can drill such holes  thru’ the length of this track)

2.      Will glass not break when the train travels over it? (Well, when a train travels over the track, there is compressive force on the track. Glass has greater strength as compared to rail steel to resist a compressive force!)

3.       How will the branches in the track be resolved? (resolved in my mind in detail)

4.      Can vibration be analyzed as I imagined? (There are two parts to this problem, one part is theoretical and the second is practical. The theoretical question is, for a composite rail as proposed by me, will there be a drop in strength to cause failure of the track? I knew that Airy’s Stress function had something to do with it, but felt diffident about pursuing it further. Well, the answer is yes and surprisingly, yesterday I found a paper that has precisely solved this question and I quote the conclusion here – “The optical fibers could be successfully used as sensors in composite laminae and will not significantly compromise the strength of the composite host.” The paper is titled “Stress Field Analysis around Optical Fiber Embedded in Composite Laminae under Transverse Loading” by Igor Balać Teaching Assistant, and other Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy

Note that this paper is  - Received: April 2006, Accepted: May 2006. © Faculty of Mechanical Engineering,  Belgrade. Date is a clear two years after my discussion, explaining the interest that Dr. Arun showed, though I was riddled with doubt.

The practical question is -  Can such scheme as I proposed be feasible on the railway track? Again a simple search on the net gives this article “The mechanism of railway tracks” by Shigeru Miura, Hideyuki Takai, Masao Uchida, Yasuto Fukada.

I have linked both these papers and hope you can see them.

This work is presently done in Japan by costly Special Inspection trains called “Doctor Yellow” , similarly UK has trains and these check the high speed tracks at 200+kmph.

5.      Can we also use the same for communication (or in other words, exploit a business potential for telecom industry)? Why not, the development in fibre-optic technology allows this today. Probably a hybrid or specially designed cable with both single and multi-mode cores can be used for this purpose, with single mode being used for track safety analysis and signaling, while multi-mode being used entirely for commercial purposes.

……. And so on.

Today as it stands, the idea is out there in (because of) Jignyaasaa (pun intended), for the world to use.

Track inspection is a very new field even today and very costly to do on a continuous basis.

The suggested idea needs no marketing to any of the railway boards anywhere in the world.

India alone requires 700,000 tons of rail steel every year. Most of it would be imported if the requirement is satisfied.

Should we allow even one life to be lost in India because a track has a defect?

If innovation is not meant for something as basic as saving lives, then what is the use of all technological endeavors that we engage in?

Dr. Arun, wherever you are, can you recall this conversation or at least a part of it?

Are the venture capitalists listening?

Will Hadeed – the SABIC company manufacturing steel, be interested enough to pursue this idea further?

Well, as Vichu Athan says “Prarabdha” is the key to all these and other questions.

This blog is in under the B2B label, let us hope that a few years down the line we see tracks which have such mechanisms in them that not a single life in India or anywhere in the world, is lost to broken tracks, removed fish plates or any such modes of failure.