Providing railway stray current risk assessments, Intertek’s dedicated team can offer advice and solutions that meet and exceed client requirements.

Each system can pose threats to others and be affected by others. For railway systems, the interference and corrosion damage threats posed to other assets are managed by risk assessment processes which commence at the design stage.

Railway Stray Current Risk Assessments

Intertek provides Total Quality Assurance stray current assessment services that evaluate the threats from a given rail system design and document likely impact on railways and third-party assets, such as bridges and tunnels or pipes and cables.

Assessments are conducted in a structured manner, in consultation with involved parties and are used to identify design mitigation requirements and design verification steps through corrosion monitoring surveys.

For structures, the assessment considers the likely stray current paths through steelwork and where the corrosion interactions are likely to fall.

The magnitude of the corrosion threat can be assessed and mitigation methods through structure bonding, isolation or cathodic protection are identified. For utility services, assessments are based on asset criticality, failure consequence and damage likelihood across the many types of new and legacy service materials in use.

Often conducted as a first step in a stray current corrosion monitoring process, our approach benefits both the railway and impacted party. 

Providing a traceable and auditable method that delivers a reasonable yet focussed monitoring programme, we help to manage each side’s expectations when it comes to the assessment of interference at the commissioning stage several years later.

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