2017 Jason Johnston and Andrew Chan

Railway Engineering Student Thesis Award 2017

THERE ARE TWO RECIPIENTS OF THE 2017 RAILWAY ENGINEERING STUDENT THESIS AWARD, BEING: MR. JASON JOHNSTON AND MR. ANDRW CHAN

 

2017 Railway Engineering Student Thesis Award

Joint Winners

Mr. Jason Johnston

Thesis: Feasibility design of transom using composite fibre technology for Sydney harbour bridge

Place of Study: Western Sydney University (Bachelor of Civil Engineering)

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Olivia Mirza  

Jason’s thesis noted composite fibre material is under development and is promising for use in transoms in rail tracks. His thesis presented two theoretical panel design solutions using Wagners Composite Fibre Technology. Finite element analysis and experimental results demonstrated that a composite panel design is to be preferred over conventional panels for use as a transom on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

 

and

Mr. Andrew Chan

Thesis: Signal processing for rail tracks monitoring and signalling

Place of Study: University of New South Wales (Bachelor of Electrical Engineering

Principal Supervisor Dr Elias Aboutanios

Andrew’s thesis examined in detail audio frequency track circuits as used by Sydney Trains with attention to track occupancy and intermittent fault detection. Through the pre-processing of data and with the use of supervised machine learning to predict faults, a model was developed that will allow for improved fault finding and predictive maintenance.

Joint winner of the 2017 RTSA Engineering Student Thesis Award. Andrew Chan received his award from Phil Campbell, Executive Chair of the RTSA at the UNSW annual graduation ceremony in Sydney on 22 June.