Steam Locomotive Boiler Inspection

WATERLOO CENTRAL RAILWAY (WCR), ST. JACOBS, ONTARIO

Waterloo Central Railway (WCR) operates the only regularly running steam locomotive in Ontario. The 55 foot long Steam Locomotive No. 9 was built at the Montreal Locomotive Works in February 1923, and generates 31,500 lbf tractive effort and 1,400 horsepower using it's steam boiler. Each year, the boiler is inspected visually by the TSSA (Technical Standards and Safety Authority), while a more extensive and detailed condition assessment is performed every 10 years, including the thickness measurement of the boiler shell.

As a technology demonstration, InspecTerra conducted a condition assessment of a small section of the steam boiler using the iCAMM technology. The inspection results were used to generate a wall thickness map of the section, and to quantify the wall thickness loss across the 18 mm thick steel shell. The survey map was also compared to independent ultrasonic thickness measurements of the same area, with excellent agreement between the results.

This study showed how the iCAMM inspection tool can also be used to rapidly map the wall thickness loss caused by corrosion in steel structures. Unlike conventional ultrasound technology, which is highly sensitive to the surface conditions and only provides information at (typically few) discrete points, iCAMM allows the continuous scanning of the entire area in a short period of time without any special surface preparation.