This paper deals with the health monitoring of rails. Many nondestructive techniques have been applied to rule on the health of rails. Ultrasonic guided waves (UGWs) technique is one among them. The current study focuses on this technique. First, it describes several kinds of defects that can occur in rails. Then, it presents the principle, advantages and limitations of UGW technique. The paper gathers as exhaustive as possible the previous works in which the said technique was used as a tool to monitor the health of rails. The paper put special emphasis on the use of UGW in structural health monitoring (SHM) context. In order to better understand the benefit/need of this technique in this context, by especially the non-specialist reader, a background concerning SHM is provided.

本文主要讨论轨道的健康监测。许多非破坏性技术已被应用于控制铁轨的健康状况。超声波导波 (UGW) 技术就是其中之一。目前的研究集中在这种技术上。首先，它描述了导轨中可能出现的几种缺陷。然后，介绍了UGW技术的原理、优点和局限性。本文尽可能详尽地收集了之前的工作，其中将所述技术用作监控导轨健康状况的工具。该论文特别强调了 UGW 在结构健康监测 (SHM) 环境中的使用。为了更好地理解这种技术在这种情况下的好处/需要，特别是非专业读者，提供了有关 SHM 的背景知识。