A new set of intelligent railway sleepers developed by the railway company needs to be tested to verify whether the ultimate goal is to develop sustainable sleepers. To this end, they investigated whether the use of new sleepers would reduce noise and improve track sustainability.

In order to measure the deformation and force at different locations in the sleeper, several high-quality accelerometers are integrated into the sleeper. A number of temperature sensors are also integrated to measure the temperature of the sleeper and the external temperature. All sensors are connected to high-tech data loggers for real-time monitoring and analysis.

The MEAS 8021-01 acceleration sensor measures vibration and acceleration, and from all this data other parameters such as force, deformation and displacement (sleeper) as well as the speed and direction of the train on the track can be calculated. In this way, the forces exerted on the rail pillow by the train are mapped in great detail. The sensor measures the minimum movement of the sleeper, such as deformation of the material and displacement of the sleeper itself. Through these measurements, the structure and performance of the sleeper can be analyzed very accurately in various cases.