Performance Evaluation of Track Curvature Sensor for Curvature Estimation in a Curved Section of Railway Tracks

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article concerns a significant problem of the dynamic behavior of a rail vehicle on a transition curve, taking into account the shape of this curve. This issue is important because, in the case of high-speed vehicles, the passage from the straight track to the curve must follow a transition curve, which should eliminate the sudden change in dynamic forces in such a case. There are many ways to limit these forces. In the article under consideration, the authors propose to measure the forces acting on the vehicle with the use of an appropriate measuring system, and then the recorded signals can be used to control the speed of the vehicle on the curve. In addition to the methods discussed by the authors in the introduction, there are also methods consisting, of the appropriate shaping of the transition curve, which also allows limiting the dynamic effects on the vehicle in the case of a straight track to a curve. Therefore, the introduction should be supplemented with works on shaping the course of the transition curve. The method of measuring the curvature of the track on the transition curve proposed in point 2 of the paper is simple and effective in the presented implementation. Nevertheless, formula (2) needs to be improved. The bibliography needs to be supplemented with current positions concerning the research on this issue. There are no items describing the current research carried out in research laboratories and teams of European railways. It is also advisable in MDPI journals to recognize the work on the transition curves and the behavior of vehicles on the transition curves.

Author Response

Responses to reviewers' comments are attached as files. 
We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for conducting a very interesting study to publish it in an international journal.

Further information on various issues identified in the manuscript appears below:

1. In the introduction: controversy and divergent hypotheses should be highlighted.
2. No reference to legal regulations, especially standards.The legal aspect needs to be completed.

 

3. Literature review is not rigorous. More literature on the safety and infrastructure railway. Especially concerning: "Performance Evaluation of Track Curvature Sensor for Curvature Estimation in a Railway Curved Sections":

Measurement of the Geometric Center of a Turnout for the Safety of Railway Infrastructure - their curves,

Integrating surveying railway special grid pins,

Railway Special Grid for rail transport infrastructure.

How your research relates to advanced geodetic/surveying and diagnostic measurements. It is recommended to expand on this research topic.

5. Does the indicated sensor system in the research, and de facto the acquired data allow to determine the type of curves e.g.: clotoid, 3rd degree parabola, Wiener curves etc. then the length of the full circular arc, the length of the transition curves. How are the results in this direction of research. Complete.
6. There is no information in the study about movement resistances of rail vehicles on Continuous Welded Rail curves and classic railway track - depending on the speed of the trains, the real cant. This thread needs to be developed.

 

6. There is no chapter "Discussion" in the study, which should be based on international literature and legal regulations, including with reference to the corrected research results. Complete. The 'Discussion' chapter should be completed.

 

7. It should be pointed out what has not been done in the studies, what studies will be carried out in the future in this area.

This completes the review.

Kind regards

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Responses to reviewers' comments are attached as files. 
We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The article “Performance Evaluation of Track Curvature Sensor for Curvature Estimation in a Railway Curved Sections” is focused on the development of a curvature measurement sensor, having a higher accuracy in measuring curvature of small radius curves with large curvature. The manuscript is well designed and organized, and the scientific work and mathematical explanations and presentation are very clear and well supported, but some points in text are not very well written/presented and need a minor revision.

1. The abstract of the paper has a very big length and many details that can be avoided, for the new contributions of authors to be better highlighted.
2. Text editing and formatting is required since many typos and format errors exist.
3. I suggest the existing methods (3 paragraphs), named in Introduction as “classical method”, “The second method”, “The third method” to be joint using improved English language to a single paragraph. The same holds for the last two paragraphs of Introduction. These format issues hold for the whole manuscript.
4. Figure 4 must be reproduced to a better resolution.
5. The presentation of the results in bullets form in Conclusions should be avoided and the very good performance of the proposed method should be highlighted more.

Thus, I suggest the acceptance of the paper after the proposed minor revision (Moderate English changes required).

Author Response

Responses to reviewers' comments are attached as files. 
We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx