scholarly journals Life Cycle Cost Evaluation of Noise Control Methods at Urban Railway Turnouts

Author(s):  
Rodrigo Tavares De Freitas ◽  
Sakdirat Kaewunruen

The railway industry focus in the past years was to research, find and develop methods to mitigate noise and vibration resulted from wheel/rail contact along track infrastructure. This resulted in a wide range of abatement measures that are available for the professionals of the industry today. However, although there are many options in the market, their practical implementations depend upon general constraints that affect most technological application in the engineering world. The progression of these technologies have facilitated the selection of more adequate methods for each best case scenario, but further studies are ought to be made to proper assess if each one is fit for their purpose. Every method implementation must be analyzed through budget and timeframe limitations, which includes building, maintenance and inspection costs and time allocation, while also aiming to meet different benefits, such as environmental impact control and wear of the whole infrastructure. There are several situations and facilities in a railway project design that need noise and vibration mitigation methods and each design allocates different priorities for each one of them. Traditionally the disturbance caused by railways to the community are generated by wheel/rail contact sound radiation that expresses in different ways, depending on the movement of the rolling stock and track alignment, such as rolling noise, impact noise and curve noise. More specifically, in special trackworks such as turnouts, the main area of this study, there are two noises types that must be evaluated: impact noise and screeching noise. With respect to the second, it is similar to curve squeals and, being such, its mitigation methods are to be assigned as if it was to abate curve squeal in turnouts and crossings. The impact noise on the other hand, emerges from the sound made by the rolling stock moving through joints and discontinuities (i.e. gaps) that composes these special components of a railway track. A life cycle analysis is therefore substantial for this reality and in this case will be applied to Squeal and Impact Noise on Special Trackwork. The evaluation is based on a valid literature review and the total costs were assumed by industry reports to maintain coherency. The period for a life cycle analysis is usually of 50 years, hence it was the value assumed. As for the general parameters, an area with high density of people was considered to estimate the values for a community with very strict limits for noise and vibration.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sakdirat Kaewunruen ◽  
Victor Martin

Significant increase in the demand for freight and passenger transports by trains pushes the railway authorities and train companies to increase the speed, the axle load and the number of train carriages/wagons. All of these actions increase ground-borne noise and vibrations that negatively affect people who work, stay, or reside nearby the railway lines. In order to mitigate these phenomena, many techniques have been developed and studied but there is a serious lack of life-cycle information regarding such the methods in order to make a well-informed and sustainable decision. The aim of this study is to evaluate the life-cycle performance of mitigation methods that can enhance sustainability and efficacy in the railway industry. The emphasis of this study is placed on new methods for ground-borne noise and vibration mitigation including metamaterials, geosynthetics, and ground improvement. To benchmark all of these methods, identical baseline assumptions and the life-cycle analysis over 50 years have been adopted where relevant. This study also evaluates and highlights the impact of extreme climate conditions on the life-cycle cost of each method. It is found that the anti-resonator method is the most expensive methods compared with the others whilst the use of geogrids (for subgrade stiffening) is relatively reliable when used in combination with ground improvements. The adverse climate has also played a significant role in all of the methods. However, it was found that sustainable methods, which are less sensitive to extreme climate, are associated with the applications of geosynthetic materials such as geogrids, composites, etc.


Author(s):  
Ioana Literat

This article advances a holistic framework that aims to facilitate a better understanding of the nuanced impact of the internet on contemporary creative participation. Functioning simultaneously as the context, locus, and medium for creative activity, the internet affects each stage in the life cycle of a creative product – creation, distribution, interpretation, and remix. In addition, this influence is felt in a wide range of creative products: off-line and online, professional and vernacular. Previous research has not examined these different processes and types of creative output in conversation with each other; by advancing an integrative analytical approach and synthesizing research from multiple domains, this work attempts to address this gap. As a way to illuminate this impact and demonstrate the value of the proposed framework, the article applies this framework to three case studies: a work of off-line art ( The Artist Is Present), online art ( Moon), and online nonart or vernacular online creativity (Pepe the Frog memes). This analysis facilitates a deeper understanding of these interrelated processes, attends to the complex ways in which new media blurs the borders between those categorizations, and discusses the potential implications of these complex contemporary dynamics.


2018 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 11003
Author(s):  
Andreas Pramudianto

Basically each product or service has its own life cycle. Life Cycle Analysis Method can be used to assess the impact of an activity both production and service activities. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) or Analisis Mengenai Dampak Lingkungan (AMDAL) is one of the activities that must be fulfilled in order to obtain an environmental permit. EIA activities have a life cycle process that needs to be known and understood so that environmental permits can be obtained. Therefore this study aims to find out the use of the LCA method in EIA procedures. In addition, with the LCA method, EIA activities are expected to be well studied according to the function of this service. LCA can provide to reduce the least impact from environmental damage. This research will be useful for the development of environmental science, especially related to the study of environmental impacts, especially EIA. It is expected that the results of the study will provide a complete picture of the relevance of the LCA method with EIA and the benefits that can be taken. The results of this study will be an important recommendation for decision makers regarding the importance of EIA in development, especially sustainable development through the method used, namely LCA.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2917 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Lozano-Miralles ◽  
Manuel Hermoso-Orzáez ◽  
Carmen Martínez-García ◽  
José Rojas-Sola

The construction industry is responsible for 40–45% of primary energy consumption in Europe. Therefore, it is essential to find new materials with a lower environmental impact to achieve sustainable buildings. The objective of this study was to carry out the life cycle analysis (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impacts of baked clay bricks incorporating organic waste. The scope of this comparative study of LCA covers cradle to gate and involves the extraction of clay and organic waste from the brick, transport, crushing, modelling, drying and cooking. Local sustainability within a circular economy strategy is used as a laboratory test. The energy used during the cooking process of the bricks modified with organic waste, the gas emission concentrate and the emission factors are quantified experimentally in the laboratory. Potential environmental impacts are analysed and compared using the ReCiPe midpoint LCA method using SimaPro 8.0.5.13. These results achieved from this method are compared with those obtained with a second method—Impact 2002+ v2.12. The results of LCA show that the incorporation of organic waste in bricks is favourable from an environmental point of view and is a promising alternative approach in terms of environmental impacts, as it leads to a decrease of 15–20% in all the impact categories studied. Therefore, the suitability of the use of organic additives in clay bricks was confirmed, as this addition was shown to improve their efficiency and sustainability, thus reducing the environmental impact.


2015 ◽  
Vol 660 ◽  
pp. 202-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Campian ◽  
Nicolae Chira ◽  
Maria Pop

Impacts of production, operation and use of a building on the environment and society cannot be ignored in design any more. Instead, performance and impacts of a building needs to be considered for a lifetime, established by design rules 50-100 years. Steel, as constructional material, plays an important role as a component for buildings and engineered structures, with a wide range of applications. Like other industrial activities, steel industry works continuously to improve in terms of sustainability. In fact, in can be observed that in the last decades, the steel frames houses, as an alternative to houses made of traditional materials, offers a lot of advantages in terms of sustainability. The approach in term of a life cycle for a building is an objective process for the evaluation of the impact on the environment, associate to a production process or to an activity. These approaches are recommended by the Integrated Product Policy (COM2003) for the evaluation of the potential impact of the products In present, there are 2 majors categories instruments for the evaluation of the built environment, on one hand made on qualitative instruments based on criteria and score, and on the other hand instruments that use an quantitative analyze of the inputs and outputs based on a life cycle. Some of these methods are used for the certification of buildings as “green-buildings”. Even many parameters are usually quantitative; they can be also qualitative in the same time, when we try to quantify the advantages due to materials.


2005 ◽  
Vol 895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Moropoulou ◽  
Christopher Koroneos ◽  
Maria Karoglou ◽  
Eleni Aggelakopoulou ◽  
Asterios Bakolas ◽  
...  

AbstractOver the years considerable research has been conducted on masonry mortars regarding their compatibility with under restoration structures. The environmental dimension of these materials may sometimes be a prohibitive factor in the selection of these materials. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool that can be used to assess the environmental impact of the materials. LCA can be a very useful tool in the decision making for the selection of appropriate restoration structural material. In this work, a comparison between traditional type of mortars and modern ones (cement-based) is attempted. Two mortars of traditional type are investigated: with aerial lime binder, with aerial lime and artificial pozzolanic additive and one with cement binder. The LCA results indicate that the traditional types of mortars are more sustainable compared to cementbased mortars. For the impact assessment, the method used is Eco-indicator 95


2018 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 217-224
Author(s):  
Magdalena Satora ◽  
Maciej Szkoda

The article concerns the application of LCC (Life Cycle Cost) life cycle analysis as a method of assessing the effectiveness of investments in rail transport. On the basis of general guidelines contained in professional literature and international standards, including PN-EN 60300-3-3:2017-07, the LCC calculation method for rail transport is presented. This method can be used to assess the effectiveness of various variants of purchasing new vehicles, as well as to compare the costs of their modernization.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-154
Author(s):  
Zoltán Korényi

Összefoglaló. A dolgozat témája a különböző erőműfajták életciklusra vonatkozó fajlagos anyagigényének a vizsgálata. Az elemzések a nemzetközi szakirodalmi források felhasználásával történtek. Módszere, a bázisadatok elemzése, majd az anyagigényeknek az erőmű beépített teljesítményére és az életciklus alatt megtermelt villamosenergiára vonatkoztatott fajlagos értékek meghatározása. Az eredmények azt mutatják, hogy a nap- és szélerőművek elterjedésével a hagyományos erőművek által felhasznált fosszilis energiaforrások (pl. a szén) bent maradnak ugyan a földben, de cserébe az új technológia legyártásához a hagyományos anyagokból (beton, acél, alumínium, réz stb.) fajlagosan jóval nagyobb mennyiségekre lesz szükség. Emellett megnő a ritkán előforduló fémek (gallium, indium stb.) felhasználása, ami Európában, a lelőhelyek hiányában, új kockázatokkal jár. Summary. The topic of the study is to determine the material use of different power plant types. This is a part of the known life cycle analysis (LCA). The aim of LCA is to determine the impact of human activity on nature. The procedure is described in the standards (ISO 14040/41/42/42). Under environmental impact we mean changes in our natural environment, air, water, soil pollution, noise and impacts on human health. In the LCA, the environmental impact begins with the opening of the mine, continues with the extraction and processing of raw materials, and then with the production of equipment, construction and installation of the power plant. This is followed by the commissioning and then operation of the power plants for 20-60 years, including maintenance. The cycle ends with demolition, which is followed by recycling of materials. The remaining waste is disposed of. This is the complex content of life cycle analysis. Its purpose is to determine the ecological footprint of man. The method of the present study is to isolate a limited area from the complex LCA process. This means determining the amount of material needed to build different power plants, excluding mining and processing of raw materials. Commercially available basic materials are built into the power plant’s components. The research is based on the literature available in the international area. The author studied these sources, analysed the data, and checked the authenticity. It was not easy because the sources from different times, for different power plants showed a lot of uncertainty. In overcoming the uncertainties, it was a help that the author has decades of experience in the realisation of power plants. It was considered the material consumption related to the installed electricity capacity of the power plant (tons/MW) as basic data. The author then determined the specific material consumptions, allocated to the electric energy generated during the lifetime, in different power plants. The calculation is carried out with the help of the usual annual peak load duration hours and the usual lifetime of the power plants. The results show that with the spread of solar and wind energy, the fossil energy sources previously needed for conventional power plants will remain inside the Earth, but in exchange for the production of new technological equipment from traditional structural materials (concrete, steel, aluminium, copper and plastic), the special need multiplies. If we compare the power plants using renewable energy with the electric energy produced during the life cycle of a nuclear power plant, the specific installed material requirement of a river hydropower plant is 37 times, that of an onshore wind farm it is 9.6 times, and that of an outdoor solar power park is 6.6 times higher. Another important difference is that wind turbines, solar panels and batteries also require rare materials that do not occur in Europe (e.g. gallium, indium, yttrium, neodymium, cobalt, etc.). This can lead to security risks in Europe in the long run.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19(34) (1) ◽  
pp. 22-36
Author(s):  
Jerzy Bieńkowski ◽  
Małgorzata Holka

In recent years, the importance of environmental threats associated with intensive livestock production has been emphasized. Compound feeds make up a part of the animal production chain. A complete assessment of the animal production system with regard to environmental criteria is therefore impossible without considering the environmental consequences of feed production. The goal of this research is to fill the gap in an environmental assessment of production processes of compound feeds in Poland. The study presents an assessment of production impacts of bovine compound feeds according to Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology. The data for analysis were based on the set of information obtained from the feed milling plant located in a commercial agricultural enterprise in the Wielkopolska region in the years 2015-2016. An inventory table of inputs was prepared in relation to the functional unit of 1 ton of compound feeds and two phases of production processes, i.e. upstream and core. For average compound feed, the impact category indicators for the global warming potential, acidification, eutrophication, photochemical ozone formation, consumption of mineral resources, fossil fuel resources and the emission of the respirable particles were respectively: 605.9 kg CO2 eq, 8.73 kg SO2 eq, 3.32 kg PO4 eq, 0.73 kg ethylene eq, 3.4x10-3 kg antimony eq, 5141.1 MJ and 2.25 kg PM2.5 eq. The upstream phase had the greatest effect on investigated impacts, while the core processes phase had a relatively low impact on environmental threats. It is recommended to broaden the scope of the research for a larger group of feed milling plants with more complex manufacturing processes, with a more branched supply structure and a wide range of compound feeds for different animal types. The obtained data can be a valuable source base in prospective analyses of the life cycle of various animal products in Poland.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 11908
Author(s):  
Alexandr Avsievich ◽  
Vladimir Avsievich ◽  
Nikita Avsievich ◽  
Dmitry Ovchinnikov ◽  
Anton Ivaschenko

We propose a new approach for railway path diagnostics on the basis of track line stress–strain analysis using the data provided by high-precision accelerometers. This type of sensor provides sufficient accuracy with lower costs, and enables the development of a railway digital twin, according to the concept of the Internet of Things. The installation of sensors on a railway track along its entire length allows real-time monitoring of the states of the technical parameters of the railway track, and using mathematical methods to evaluate its wear on the basis of constantly received data. This paper presents an original 3D model of a railway track line and the results of its analysis using a finite element method. To test the model, we performed an analysis of the normal stresses and deformations in the elements of a railway track by simulating the impact of rolling stock on a section of a railway track with intermediate rail fastenings, ZhBR-65SH. The research results were probated and tested at the testing ground of the Kuibyshev branch of Russian Railways, the Samara track. The proposed approach makes it possible to determine the load of the track, and knowing the movement of the rail, to calculate the structural stress in the elements of the railway track, to constantly monitor the parameters of the slope and rail subsidence.


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