An axle counting demonstrator from Frauscher was recently handed over to the Department of Railway Technology and Mobility. Both in research and in teaching, we can already look back on a successful collaboration. The excursion to Frauscher and Sensonic is an annual fixture in the Master's course Technical Systems in Railway Engineering. In addition, there have already been several research projects with the company on the subject of broken rail detection (BRD) and axle counters (Resilient Rail).

Frauscher has now provided a wheel sensor including an axle counter evaluation device.

To enable train rides and set routes it is necessary to know the location of the trains in the tracks. Therefore axle counters are used beneath central calculating unit trackside axle counters are used. The purpose is to detect rail vehicles in a certain track section. So the axles and the direction in which they are moving are counted using two electromagnetic coils arranged one behind the other. The influence that the wheel passing over it has on the magnetic fields of the coils is detected. Only when the next axle counter counts the same number of axles as the previous one the track section released.

The demonstrator from Frauscher will be used for teching and research purpose in the future. The first users are part-time students Johannes Burgstaller and Andreas Krückel, who are working on the topic of trackside train detection as part of their bachelor's thesis.

In the photo from left to right. Dr. Dominik Fasthuber (Frauscher), Johannes Burgstaller, Andreas Krückel (both students 5th semester Bachelor), DI Adrian Wagner (Carl Ritter von Ghega Institut FH St. Pölten)