Development and Validation of a Railway Safety System for Nordic Trains in Isolated Territories of Northern Quebec Based on 802.15.4 Protocol

Connected objects are deployed all over the world. Thus, they are contributing to improving communications. In urban areas, technological challenges are gradually being overcome, and advances in this area are exponential. Unfortunately, isolated territories such as northern Quebec do not beneficiate from this technological progress. Yet, northern Quebec relies on abundant natural resources, with notably its huge hydroelectric dams and iron mines, and therefore, the region’s economic life revolves essentially around the exploitation of these resources and is heavily reliant on rail transportation. However, according to Transport Canada, 1246 railroad accidents were reported in 2019 to the Transportation Safety Board (TSB). Thirty-eight people described as trespassers lost their lives, and five railroad employees were fatally injured. In this context, we present the implementation of a security system in an isolated environment for employees intervening on the railroad track to warn them of the imminent arrival of a train. Due to the context of the isolated environment, i.e., without an electrical network, without internet, and without an LTE network, a solution for employees has been developed using a Zigbee telecommunication system and a connected watch. A case study on a train operating in a remote and isolated area in northern Quebec is presented to validate the performance of the proposed system based on an open-source and customizable solution.

Railway Track Failure Detection System

Indian railway is one of the largest networks in the country. Its motto is “the life line of the country”, and the main transport is completed by the railways of the country. Railroad is one of the cheapest and safest means of transport, but there are also certain accidents on the railroad. 60% of accidents are caused by road failures or the formation of cracks in the road. Today’s rail systems involve manual track inspection, which is cumbersome and not entirely effective. However, the detection and correction of track defects is a problem for all railway companies in the world. The objective of this research work is to detect railroad track failures with the help of ultrasonic sensor and show the exact location of the crack on web app by using GPS module.

Designing a Smartphone Application for Religious Tourism in Sukoharjo, Malang, Indonesia

Many potential tourism spots have been recently developed all over Malang, Indonesia. It all started from a university student’s project that transformed the packed living area of the colorful village of Jodipan (Kampung Warna Warni Jodipan) into a tourism destination. After this successful metamorphosis, the nearby villages started to develop their thematic villages. For example, across the bridge from Jodipan there is Kampung 3D and across the railroad track is Kampung Biru Arema. Near these places, there is Sukoharjo sub-district which is longing to do the same. One of the potential attractions on Sukoharjo is Haul Akbar Pondok Pesantren Darul Hadits Al-Faqihiyyah (the annual celebration of the Islamic boarding school Darul Hadits Al-Faqihiyyah), which is a pillar of religious tourism in Malang. This project explored a smartphone application design that would bring tourists to Sukoharjo. The design and development involved adapting prototype SDLC models to quickly involve the audience in the process. The prototype is expected to be used in a pilot project that further employs the development features of the smartphone application. Keywords: Smartphone application, potential tourism spots, prototype SLDC models

Modelling the Effect of Track Stiffness Variation on Wheel Rail Interaction Using Finite Element Method

For predictive maintenance purpose, wheel and rail wear evolution models have been developed based on wheel rail contact force calculations. These models are known to assume the wheel rotating on a rigid rail. However recent developments have shown that the flexibility of the track plays an important role in wear evolution. On the other hand, vertical track stiffness variation along the track is known to exist and to affect the track flexibility. The present research work investigates the influence of non-uniform track modulus on the wheel rail contact forces using elasto-plastic explicit dynamic Finite Elements (FE). The FE model is composed of a quarter car model running on a rail supported by three cross-ties. The modulus of elasticity of the cross-ties is calibrated to produce the total track modulus of the railroad track infrastructure. Non-uniformity of the track is modeled by assigning distinct elasticity moduli to the cross-ties. The instantaneous contact physical parameters are extracted from FE models repetitively for various cross-tie modulus ratios. The results show that increase in cross-tie modulus variation results in increased fluctuation amplitudes of wheel-rail contact parameters such as force, stress and contact area. This effect leads to changes of the rate of material removal on the wheels and rails. This research work intends to incorporate the spatial variation of the railroad track stiffness into rail vehicle wheel and track wear prediction models.

Railroad track technological construction process modeling and optimization using a genetic algorithm

The article discusses theoretical and practical research in the field of evolutionary modeling application for solving construction works planning problems in the formation of railroad track technological construction process. The study is a part of the developed engineering and technical support subsystem for railway construction: engineering and intellectual support of railroad track technological construction process. This subsystem is based on the effective use of automated systems with artificial intelligence elements. Development and implementation of these automated systems are focused on achieving a single end result, such as a finished railroad track facility with suitable functionality within the established deadlines, planned working cost and labor costs, as well as meeting modern safety requirements throughout the entire operation period. Taking into account railway construction dynamic, the use of new materials and technologies, new trends were identified within the study scope in the field of technological processes operational development, and optimal work sequence determination in the railway facilities construction. In particular, the occurrence of deviations from the planned requirements in the construction work course requires a quick reconsideration of the decisions already made, due to the railway construction stochastic behavior. This is a forced measure to ensure the fulfillment of the planned targets. The existing methods allow to correct the construction work organization, however, the technology, and in particular, the technological process remains unchanged. The static nature of the technological process is largely dictated by the project documentation requirements and work safety. But modern advances in the information and intelligent technologies field, with the account of technological process structure variability, can give a technological process dynamic properties. The technological process's ability to adapt to changing work production conditions will provide flexibility in the railway facilities construction. To solve this problem, an automated evolutionary modeling mode and optimization of the railway facility construction technological process were used. The peculiarities of existing optimization methods, in terms of the dimension of the active task and taking into account several criteria, force us to turn to intelligent methods. The article describes a technological processes optimization method for the railway facilities construction using a genetic directed search algorithm in the space of solutions. In this case, several design constraints are taken into account: resource, technological, organizational, informational. For this, a computational and logical model was developed, which made it possible to assess the target function (fitness function), with the account of the dynamic distribution nature of the contractor's available resources for construction work. Based on the theoretical research results, the article presents the practical aspects of evolutionary modeling and optimization of the railway facilities construction technological process using a genetic algorithm on the example of the flooded railway roadbed embankment construction. The results presented in this article were obtained during the dissertation research made by the author.