PROTOTYPING OF A PRECISION DIGITAL RULER USING THE ARDUINO FOR THE GEOMETRIC INSPECTION OF THE PERLITHIC RAILWAY POST WELDING

Abstract

In railroad welding yards, the Flash Butt Welding (FBW) process of pearlitic rail tracks is standardized through Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) based on normative standards and processes that govern the quality control of welding during the welding process. The objective of this work was to develop a digital precision ruler to optimize the geometric inspection of raw welds. For prototyping, an Arduino board was programmed in C++ to receive the readings from the laser distance sensor and print the corresponding information on the LCD display, regarding the vertical and horizontal warping of the billet. After soldering. Since the accuracy of the sensor used depends on certain factors that cause the reading to vary, the data received from the sensor varies. Compared to current programs that use knife-type gauges, the prototype is well optimized in geometric inspection programs due to the ease of use and observation of the measurement readings. For future implementation of the final project, the use of sensors with higher accuracy and minimal variation (in the range of one hundredth of a millimeter) is required.