Jim Baciak, Ph.D., is an associate professor and director of the Nuclear Engineering Program in the Department of Materials Science Engineering at UF. He is also an affiliate of the UFTI who is interested in applying his nuclear and radiological, non-destructive testing and imaging techniques to investigate various forms of infrastructure.
“My hope is that by being affiliated with UFTI, it will allow me to further expand some of my research collaborations beyond nuclear,” Baciak said.
Baciak works on developing x-ray and gamma-ray radiation detector and imaging systems for a variety of applications ranging from non-destructive testing and examination to national security and nuclear non-proliferation. His research can be basic in nature, from finding new radiation detection materials, to more advanced areas such as developing radiation imaging techniques and systems integration.
One of his current projects that has produced excellent results, especially at the commercial level, is the development of a method to test the integrity of crossties. Rail or crossties are the wood or pre-stressed concrete slabs that are laid perpendicular to the rails on a railroad track. With collaboration from Georgetown Rail Equipment Company out of Georgetown, Texas, the company who funded the project titled “Automated Crossties Inspection using Backscatter Radiography,” he used backscatter radiation technology, which showed that flaws in these rail ties could be detected from the inside out. Thus, a prototype testing equipment was created.
“In this particular project, what we are trying to find are rail ties that are degrading while they are in service,” Baciak said. “So, they are actually on live track, and heavy haul and passenger trains that go over these every day cause a lot of stress and strain on the whole track infrastructure. We are looking to find the ties that are degrading.”
A standard inspection of crossties includes a technician walking up and down the tracks looking for compromised ties, those that are rotting or loose, and with Baciak’s method, a more technologically reliable inspection system is accomplished that makes the process easier, cheaper and safer.
“We are trying to find where the sleepers are,” Baciak said. “A sleeper is a crosstie that is degrading from the inside out. So you look at it and don’t see a problem, but the reality is that due to rot or bug infestation, it is actually decaying away. If you get a lot of weak ties in a relatively short section of track, that track can potentially loose integrity. One of the major causes of derailments in the country is the loss of track integrity.”
Georgetown Rail built a 100-foot working rail track at UF, which allowed Baciak and his graduate students, including Edward Dugan, Ph.D., an associate professor in Nuclear Engineering at UF, to experiment with the technology before it was tested on the company’s live track in Texas.
“This has been a very unique experience for a lot of my students working on a project that has been able to go from a lab setting to developing and contributing to the creation of a new commercial product,” Baciak said.
Greg Grissom, vice president of engineering at Georgetown Rail Equipment Company agrees, “UF has provided invaluable academic knowledge and graduate talent in assisting GREX develop tomorrow’s railroad solutions.”
The prototype is now available commercially and is currently being used by Georgetown Rail, which provides the rail industry with inspection and maintenance services to companies such as CSX and BNSF.
However, Baciak’s backscatter technique is not limited to rail. It can actually be applied to test other infrastructure such as steel bridges.
“Rail is just one example, but another area is bridge structures which applies to vehicle traffic and maintaining bridges,” Baciak said. “Some people shy away from using nuclear and radiological techniques because you are using radiation, but it can be a very effective tool that complements a number of other non-destructive techniques.”
For more information on this project, contact Dr. Jim Baciak at jebaciak@mse.ufl.edu.