Research on Transition of Road Bed of Wuhan-Guangzhou Passenger Line and Bridge

Kang, Bo-Soon,Jun, Yang The Korean Society for Railway 2009 International Journal of Railway Vol.2 No.4

High speed railway challenge the design, construction and maintaining of traditional railway, many traditional design concepts have been changed. Transition of railway and bridge has two main problems. one is that different lines have different ability of resisting distortion in area of trial load, which was known that problem of smooth transition of stiffness, the other is that differential settlement between artificial structure and earth structure cause bending of railway. The two problems have effect on train moving. The principle of processing transition of railway and bridge is same in world, but it is difficult to find relationship between design standard of transition, vehicle performance, line standard, design speed and so on form documentation and data reports. Based on mechanics, the paper analyzed dynamic performance of transition of high speed railway, studied various rough elements which is effective to train moving, built mathematical model of interaction of train and transition of high speed railway and developed numerical simulation software. In various different work conditions, we did great quantity of numerical simulation, comprehensive analysis and performance analysis.

Safety Levels Apportionment in Railway System

Rafrafi, Meriem,El Koursi, El Miloudi,Bourdeaud'Huy, Thomas The Korean Society for Railway 2008 International Journal of Railway Vol.1 No.4

The creation of a single European rail transport market it is important to increase confidence between the actors on the market and between member states who shall ensure that railway safety is generally maintained and, where reasonably practicable, continuously improved. For this purpose the European railway safety directive introduces a mechanism to adopt a Common Safety Targets (CST) expressed in risk acceptance criteria for individuals and for society. This paper focuses on the apportionment of safety targets for European railway system. We develop a generic approach based on the Functional Hazard Analysis (FHA), to analyse the safety of railway systems for a unified European network and to comply with the CSTs required by the European railway Safety Directive. We suggest to combine the FHA technique with the functional railway architecture to allocate the safety targets to the railway functions.

Reduction of Railway-induced Vibration using In-filled Trenches with Pipes

Hasheminezhad, Araz The Korean Society for Railway 2014 International Journal of Railway Vol.7 No.1

Reduction in railway-induced vibrations in urban areas is a very challenging task in railway transportation. Many mitigation measures can be considered and applied. Among these, a little attention has been paid to trenches. In this study, a numerical investigation on the effectiveness of in-filled trenches with pipes in reducing railway vibrations due to passing trains is presented. Particularly, a series of two-dimensional dynamic analysis was performed to model the behavior of ballasted railway track under harmonic load with ABAQUS software as a Finite Element method. In so doing, two types of in-filled trenches with pipes with steel and concrete materials have been investigated in this paper. In addition, effectiveness of pipes made of steel and concrete, filled with loose sand and clay in railway-induced vibration reduction has been assessed. The results point out that using in-filled trench with pipes does not effective a lot on railway-induced vibration reduction in comparison to other railway-induced vibration reduction methods. However, in-filled trenches with steel pipes are much more effective than in-filled trenches with concrete pipes. Moreover, filling pipes with loose sand and clay does not have any effect on vibration reduction efficiency of these in-filled trenches.

Environmental Noise Prediction using Scale Model: A Measurement Methodology

Kim, Tae-Min,Han, Jae-Hyun,Kim, Jeung-Tae The Korean Society for Railway 2011 International Journal of Railway Vol.4 No.2

Today, rolling stock has become a fast and convenient mode of transportation and has witnessed increased demand. But the speed improvement has resulted in increased aerodynamic noise and therefore residential districts near the railroad tracks are exposed to ever increasing noise level. A study on methodologies for measuring and appraising rolling stock's environmental noise has therefore become an important area of endeavor. In the case of the environmental noise, there are no changes in tone so prediction can be made by reducing areas around the railway. The present study explores estimation of the noise around the railway using scale model, and the source of the noise has been investigated as well. The scale model of rolling stock will have to be able to measure high frequency noise and it is required to be generated in a short amount of time. Since popping a balloon or firing a gun fits this requirement the present study analyzed the characteristics of these two different noise sources. Measurement was made in a large vacant lot and the reflection due to the ground was also examined. The method proposed here can be used in the future for predicting the environmental noise of railway vehicles.

A Tentative Methodology for Quality Control of Trackbed Fills Using Field and Laboratory P-Wave Measurements

Park, Chul-Soo,Park, In-Beom,Kim, Eun-Jung,Mok, Young-Jin The Korean Society for Railway 2008 International Journal of Railway Vol.1 No.2

The quality of track-bed fills of railways has been controlled by field measurements of density $({\gamma}_d)$ and the results of plate-load tests. The control measures are compatible with the design procedures whose design parameter is $k_{30}$ for both ordinary-speed railways and high-speed railways. However, one of fatal flaws of the design procedures that there are no simple laboratory measurement procedures for the design parameters ($k_{30}$ or, $E_{v2}$ and $E_{v2}/E_{v1}$) in design stage. A new quality control procedure, in parallel with the advent of the new design procedure, is being proposed. This procedure is based upon P-wave velocity involving consistently the evaluation of design parameters in design stage and the field measurements during construction. The Key concept of the procedure is that the target value for field compaction control is the P-wave velocity determined at OMC using modified compaction test, and direct-arrival method is used for the field measurements during construction. The procedure was verified at a test site and the p-wave velocity turned out to be an excellent control measure. The specifications for the control also include field compaction water content of OMC${\pm}$2% as well as the p-wave velocity.

Settlement and Bearing Capacity of Roadbed Subjected to Tilting-train Loading in Various Ground Conditions

Jeon, Sang-Soo The Korean Society for Railway 2015 International Journal of Railway Vol.8 No.2

Tilting-train is very attractive to the railroad users in the world due to the advantage of high speed in curved track using pre-existing infrastructure of railway. Tilting-train has a unique allowable speed and mechanism especially in curved track. In this work, when tilting-train is operated with the allowable speed, the behavior of roadbed is evaluated by examining its settlement and bearing capacity. Additionally, the stability of roadbed is estimated as the roadbed is in the condition of soft soil influenced by the weather effects and cyclic train loading. Numerical results show that the roadbed settlement satisfies the allowable settlement when the elastic modulus of upper roadbed should be greater than $5000t/m^2$.

Development of an Imaging Based Gang Protection System

Grimm, M.,Pelz, M. The Korean Society for Railway 2008 International Journal of Railway Vol.1 No.4

During maintenance or construction works in or at the tracks of railways, high risks for passengers and railway staff, especially for the workers on the construction site exist. The high risks result out of the movement of rail vehicles, like trains or construction vehicles, which must be faced by using any available technical and operational technologies for securing them against the environment. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the level of protection continuously and to identify new and innovative methods and technologies for the protection of the gang (construction worker, machines and material). Especially on construction sites at line sections with two or more parallel tracks but also with single tracks, there are still a lot of incidents and accidents mostly with seriously injured persons or fatalities. These were mainly gang members that breach the railway-loading gage. By using proper warning or protection systems, the avoidance of such accidents must be achieved. The latest developments. in gang protection systems concern on the one hand fixed barriers in the middle between the construction site and the operated track and on the other hand construction vehicles equipped with automatic warning systems. The disadvantage of such protection methods is that the gang can be warned against an approaching train but a monitoring of the gang members cannot be performed. Only one part of a potential dangerous situation will be detected. If the gang members will overhear the acoustic warning signal of the security staff and the workers will not leave the danger zone in the track, the driver of the approaching train had no chance to react to the dangerous situation. An accident is often inevitable. While the detection of acoustic warning signals by the gang members working on a construction site is very difficult, the acoustical planning of an automatic warning system has to be designed for an acoustic short range level of one meter besides the construction vehicle. The decision about the use of today's technical warning system (fixed systems, automatic warning systems, etc.) must be geared to the technical feasibility and the level of safety which is needed. Criteria for decision guidance to block a track should be developed by danger estimation and economical variables. To realize the actual jurisdiction and to minimize the hazards of railway operations by the use of construction vehicles near the tracks further developments are needed. This means, that the warning systems have to be enhanced to systems for protection, which monitor the realization of the warning signal as a precondition for giving a movement authority to a train. This method can protect against accidents caused by predictable wrongdoing. The actual state of the art technique of using a collective warning combined with additional security staff is no longer acceptable. Therefore, the Institute of Transportation System of the German Aerospace Center in Braunschweig (Germany) will develop a gang warning and protection system based upon imaging methods, with optical sensors such as video in visible and invisible ranges, radar, laser, and other. The advantage of such a system based on the possibility to monitor both the gang itself and the railway-loading gauge either of the parallel track or of the same track still in use. By monitoring both situations, the system will be able to generate a warning message for the approaching train, that there are obstacles in the track, so that the train can be stopped to prevent an accident. And also the gang workers will be warned, while they breach their area.

Financial Decline of Pakistan Railways and Prospective Turnaround

Ch., Kashif Farooq The Korean Society for Railway 2013 International Journal of Railway Vol.6 No.4

We have studied the financial performance of Pakistan Railways and found that the financial indicator (net earnings ratio) of Pakistan Railways is consistently decreasing over the years, causing severe financial and operational crises. The implication of our study indicates that the '3Rs' Strategy (retrenchment, repositioning and reorganizing) should be put into practice and furthermore, favorable changes in environmental factors can also contribute towards organizational turnaround. This study would help the Government of Pakistan to think and plan more clearly about turnaround strategies that could improve the performance and growth of Pakistan Railways.

Vibration Analysis of Railway Tracks Forced by Distributed Moving Loads

Lee, Sinyeob,Kim, Dongkyu,Ahn, Sangkeun,Park, Junhong The Korean Society for Railway 2013 International Journal of Railway Vol.6 No.4

The purpose of this study was to develop a theoretical model to analyze the vibration of finite railways forced by distributed moving loads. The vibration characteristics of compliantly supported beam utilizing compressional damping model were investigated through the Rayleigh-Ritz method. The distributed moving load was analyzed as the cross correlation function on railways. This allowed the use of statistical characteristics for simulation of the moving train wheels on the rail. The results showed there is a critical velocity inducing resonant vibration of the rail. The mass spring resonance from the rail fastening systems exhibited significant influence on the resulting vibration response. In particular, the effect of the viscoelastic core damping was investigated as an efficient method for minimizing rail vibration. The decrease of the averaged vibration and rolling noise generation by the damping core was maximized at the mass-stiffness-mass resonance frequency.

Defect Monitoring In Railway Wheel and Axle

Kwon, Seok-Jin,Lee, Dong-Hyoung,You, Won-Hee The Korean Society for Railway 2008 International Journal of Railway Vol.1 No.1

The railway system requires safety and reliability of service of all railway vehicles. Suitable technical systems and working methods adapted to it, which meet the requirements on safety and good order of traffic, should be maintained. For detection of defects, non-destructive testing methods-which should be quick, reliable and cost-effective - are most often used. Since failure in railway wheelset can cause a disaster, regular inspection of defects in wheels and axles are mandatory. Ultrasonic testing, acoustic emission and eddy current testing method and so on regularly check railway wheelset in service. However, it is difficult to detect a crack initiation clearly with ultrasonic testing due to noise echoes. It is necessary to develop a non-destructive technique that is superior to conventional NDT techniques in order to ensure the safety of railway wheelset. In the present paper, the new NDT technique is applied to the detection of surface defects for railway wheelset. To detect the defects for railway wheelset, the sensor for defect detection is optimized and the tests are carried out with respect to surface and internal defects each other. The results show that the surface crack depth of 1.5 mm in press fitted axle and internal crack in wheel could be detected by using the new method. The ICFPD method is useful to detect the defect that initiated in railway wheelset.