Railway ballast track hanging sleeper defect detection using a smart CNT self-sensing concrete railway sleeper

•A new method for hanging sleeper defect detection has been proposed.•The potential of a self-sensing concrete structure to detect ballast layer defect has been studied.•An optimum self-sensing smart concrete railway sleeper is manufactured and studied, experimentally and theatrically.•In a full scale FEM study behavior of self-sensing smart sleepers were assessed.