scholarly journals Preliminary study of shaping the railway track geometry in terms of their maintenance costs and capacity

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Gołębiowski ◽  
Jacek Kukulski
Keyword(s):  
Asset Management ◽  
Transport Infrastructure ◽  
Railway Track ◽  
Risk Level ◽  
Maintenance Costs ◽  
Track Geometry ◽  
Track System ◽  
System Solution ◽  
New Construction ◽  
Infrastructure Maintenance

In Poland, due to the increase in investments made by railways in recent years, and thus the increase in the replacement value of transport infrastructure, the need for expenditure on infrastructure maintenance will increase in the next 30 years, or the development of the developed transport network will degrade. As part of the overall discipline of resource management, subdiscipline has emerged - infrastructure asset management. As part of the management of railway transport infrastructure, the demand for cheaper maintenance costs will grow. The cost reduction of infrastructure maintenance is possible through meticulous assessment of its condition, rational selection of locations and scope of repairs at the assumed risk level, as well as at the stage of preparation of new construction or modernization projects taking into account aspects of later maintenance. For some time, we have been observing the accumulation of knowledge (methods, programs, procedures) in the country and abroad enabling optimization of infrastructure condition assessment and programming of its maintenance. The implementation of these solutions may result in a more rational use of funds for infrastructure maintenance and not disturb its smooth functioning in operation. The article discusses aspects that should be considered in the design process of railway infrastructure. Particular attention was paid to the durability of steel components of the railway superstructure, maintenance costs as well as aspects related to the capacity of the track node. An example of dependence of selected values of radial arcs depending on their durability and maintenance costs was presented. It was proposed to change the track layout at the Warszawa Srodmiescie passenger stop planned for reconstruction. Calculations of kinematic parameters for various configurations of railway turnouts were performed. Also, calculations of the capacity for the existing track system solution as well as the proposed track system after reconstruction of the analysed Warszawa Srodmiescie railway station were also carried out.

scholarly journals Impact of rail infrastructure maintenance conditions on the vehicle-track interaction loads

2020 ◽  
pp. 095440622096214
Author(s):  
Naim Kuka ◽  
Caterina Ariaudo ◽  
Riccardo Verardi ◽  
João Pombo
Keyword(s):  
Railway Track ◽  
Rolling Stock ◽  
Railway Transport ◽  
Computational Tools ◽  
Maintenance Costs ◽  
Rail Infrastructure ◽  
Efficiency Performance ◽  
Continuous Support ◽  
Infrastructure Maintenance ◽  
The Cost

The rail infrastructure and the track components are expensive assets with long life spans and high maintenance costs. The cost efficiency, performance and punctuality of train operations heavily depend on the track conditions. Ideally, the railway track would be completely smooth providing continuous support to the rolling stock running on it. In practice, however, the infrastructure cannot be installed without irregularities. These defects will increase over time due to the service loads imposed by the railway vehicles. The aim of this work is to use advanced computational tools to predict how the vehicles will respond to changing levels of track defects. For this purpose, the track and its maintenance conditions are characterized in realistic operation scenarios and modelled with detail in order to enable studying the interaction loads that are imposed to the vehicles by the track conditions. The presented methodology enables to identify the track health indexes that have higher influence on the dynamic loads transmitted to the rolling stock. It was observed that the track layout, track irregularities and degradation of the rails have the larger influence on the vehicle-track interaction loads with consequences in terms of safety and maintenance costs. In this way, this work contributes to the development of solutions with technological relevance, giving answer to the industry’s most recent needs in terms of reducing the maintenance costs and decreasing the incidents that cause traffic disruptions, contributing to improve the competitiveness of the railway transport.

scholarly journals Investigation of the reinforcement and stabilisation effect of geogrid layers under railway ballast

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 22-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sz. Fischer ◽  
F. Horvát
Keyword(s):  
Research Team ◽  
Research Topic ◽  
Transport Infrastructure ◽  
Railway Track ◽  
Railway Ballast ◽  
Track Geometry ◽  
Municipal Engineering ◽  
New Research

Investigation of the reinforcement and stabilisation effect of geogrid layers under railway ballastThis paper deals with the issue of the stabilization of railway track geometry. It details the published results in numerous international journals. Having analysed the cited publications the paper deals with a new research topic related to geogrid-reinforced railway ballast. A research team of the Department of Transport Infrastructure and Municipal Engineering at the Szechenyi Istvan University would like to continue working on this research topic.

scholarly journals The impact of summer heatwaves on railway track geometry maintenance

2021 ◽  
pp. 095440972098429
Author(s):  
Ben Davies ◽  
John Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Asset Management ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Railway Track ◽  
Management Support ◽  
Maintenance Policy ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Track Geometry ◽  
Maintenance Activities ◽  
The Impact

Elevated summer temperatures are a disrupting factor on the rail network. Due to the risk of a track buckling under thermal expansion forces, geometry maintenance must be delayed during heatwaves, leading to an overall decreased network availability and reliability. Track asset management support tools are used to plan and schedule a variety of maintenance activities, with tamping and stoneblowing being the primary activities for geometry maintenance. No management tools seen in the literature consider the influences of weather on the scheduling and delivery of maintenance. This paper describes a Petri net modelling approach to railway track asset management. This is demonstrated to be a highly flexible method able to capture the complexities of degradation, inspection, and maintenance, and predict the evolution of track geometry quality over time. Different maintenance strategies are tested, varying the degradation thresholds, inspection intervals, policy decisions, and maintenance response times. Excessively hot weather is introduced as an inhibiting factor for all maintenance activities, resulting in extended periods where interventions are delayed. Simulation results show that frequent inspection and timely maintenance scheduling strategies could be followed to attain a highly performing and resilient track system. This asset management support tool could be added to the suite used by the rail industry, providing guidance on maintenance policy through a summer season where heatwave disruptions are expected.

scholarly journals Railway track availability modelling with opportunistic maintenance practice

2021 ◽  
pp. 095440972110476
Author(s):  
Ben Davies ◽  
John Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Asset Management ◽  
Ride Comfort ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Railway Track ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Maintenance Strategy ◽  
Combined System ◽  
Opportunistic Maintenance ◽  
Track Geometry ◽  
Maintenance Practice

The geometry of railway track must be maintained within certain standards in order to provide a highly available network, as well as good ride comfort and safety for all rail users. Modelling is well utilised as part of asset management tools in exploring the effectiveness of different rail geometry maintenance strategies. By considering the rail route as an entire system – in contrast to a track section in isolation – a more effective maintenance strategy can be developed, including the deployment of opportunistic maintenance practice. This study presents a Coloured Petri Net model of railway track degradation, inspection, and maintenance planning and delivery, for an entire route of track sections. Opportunistic maintenance is introduced through a novel search transition function, which groups interventions based on local adjacency. Testing explores the availability and maintenance demands expected when following a series of different management strategies. This is extended to testing under heatwave conditions, a known disrupter to track geometry maintenance delivery. Simulation results show that in following an opportunistic strategy, greater availability can be achieved on the modelled rail line. Further, resilience to the heatwave disruptions can be achieved by selecting the correct maintenance strategy parameters. This asset management tool can provide guidance on management strategies for a full route of track sections as a combined system.

scholarly journals Measurement of Railway Track Geometry: A State-of-the-Art Review

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-88
Author(s):  
András Farkas
Keyword(s):  
Contact Forces ◽  
Railway Track ◽  
Motion Sensors ◽  
Position Information ◽  
Track Geometry ◽  
Measurement Systems ◽  
Track System ◽  
Railway Engineering ◽  
Rail Inspection

The worldwide increase in frequency of traffic for passenger trains and the rise of freight trains over the recent years necessitate the more intense deployment of track monitoring and rail inspection procedures. The wheel-rail contact forces, induced by the static axle loads of the vehicle and the dynamic effects of ground-borne vibration coming from the track superstructure, have been a significant factor contributing to the degradation of the railway track system. Measurements of track irregularities have been applied since the early days of railway engineering to reveal the current condition and quality of railway lines. Track geometry is a term used to collectively refer to the measurable parameters including the faults of railway tracks and rails. This paper is aiming to review the characteristics of compact inertial measurement systems (IMUs), their components, installation, the basic measures of the quality of the track using motion sensors, like accelerometers, gyroscopes and other sensing devices mounted on different places of the vehicle. Additionally, the paper briefly discusses the fundamentals of inertial navigation, the kinematics of the translational and rotational train motions to obtain orientation, velocity and position information.

scholarly journals The Design and Implementation of an Inertial GNSS Odometer Integrated Navigation System Based on a Federated Kalman Filter for High-Speed Railway Track Inspection

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 5244
Author(s):  
Xinchun Zhang ◽  
Ximin Cui ◽  
Bo Huang
Keyword(s):  
Kalman Filter ◽  
Navigation System ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Measurement Accuracy ◽  
Railway Track ◽  
Filter Method ◽  
Integrated Navigation ◽  
High Speed Railway ◽  
Track Geometry ◽  
Integrated Navigation System

The detection of track geometry parameters is essential for the safety of high-speed railway operation. To improve the accuracy and efficiency of the state detector of track geometry parameters, in this study we propose an inertial GNSS odometer integrated navigation system based on the federated Kalman, and a corresponding inertial track measurement system was also developed. This paper systematically introduces the construction process for the Kalman filter and data smoothing algorithm based on forward filtering and reverse smoothing. The engineering results show that the measurement accuracy of the track geometry parameters was better than 0.2 mm, and the detection speed was about 3 km/h. Thus, compared with the traditional Kalman filter method, the proposed design improved the measurement accuracy and met the requirements for the detection of geometric parameters of high-speed railway tracks.

Railway track irregularity and curvature estimation using doppler LIDAR fiber optics

2016 ◽  
Vol 232 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masood Taheri Andani ◽  
Andrew Peterson ◽  
Josh Munoz ◽  
Mehdi Ahmadian
Keyword(s):  
Fiber Optics ◽  
Field Testing ◽  
Railway Track ◽  
Vehicle Speed ◽  
Doppler Lidar ◽  
Close Match ◽  
Track Geometry ◽  
Lidar Measurements ◽  
Curvature Estimation ◽  
Geometry Measurement

The application of Doppler-based LIght Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) technology for determining track curvature and lateral irregularities, including alignment and gage variation, are investigated. The proposed method uses track measurements by two low-elevation, slightly tilted LIDAR sensors nominally pointed at the rail gage face on each track. The Doppler LIDAR lenses are installed with a slight forward angle to measure track speed in both longitudinal and lateral directions. The lateral speed measurements are processed for assessing the track gage and alignment variations, using a method that is based on the frequency bandwidth dissimilarities between the vehicle speed and track geometry irregularity. Using the results from an extensive series of tests with a body-mounted Doppler LIDAR system on-board a track geometry measurement railcar, the study indicates a close match between the LIDAR measurements and those made with existing sensors on-board the railcar. The field testing conducted during this study indicates that LIDAR sensors could provide a reliable, non-contact track monitoring instrument for field use in various weather and track conditions, potentially in a semi-autonomous or autonomous manner.

scholarly journals A knowledge-based prognostics framework for railway track geometry degradation

2019 ◽  
Vol 181 ◽  
pp. 127-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Chiachío ◽  
Manuel Chiachío ◽  
Darren Prescott ◽  
John Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Railway Track ◽  
Track Geometry ◽  
Knowledge Based
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