High-adhesion AC-drive freight locomotives can exert 50% more traction force [1] for a given locomotive weight in comparison to older DC-drive units. One of the factors holding back widespread adoption […]
Quarried natural rock aggregates are the most demanded type of railway ballast worldwide, attributed to their favourable physical, geotechnical and mechanical properties. After a certain period of operation and fatigue […]
Unlike methods such as replacing components when they fail or on a calendar time schedule, Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) consists of quantifying component degradation in real-time, allowing repairs to be […]
Railway bridges and other civil infrastructure perform an essential role in the economy of many developed countries. Railway organisations around the world have been improving rail productivity by increasing axle […]
With the increase in railway traffic and axle loads over the last few decades, traditional sleepers are experiencing more premature failure, resulting in significant maintenance costs. Indeed, most recent studies […]
Laser speckle produced by illuminating an optically rough surface act as an information carrier that records unique surface information has been developed for non-contact strain measurements and structural health monitoring. […]
The Australian railway industry spends millions of dollars every year in replacing poor condition railway sleepers in order to maintain the track quality and ensure a safe track operation. It […]
The empty weight or tare load of railway freight wagons is significant compared to the gross load (13-43% of the gross load) which not only reduces the possibility of carrying […]
An ideal braking system not only ensures safety and ride comfort but also attracts significant cost-benefits through optimum on-time operation and reduction in wheel-rail damage processes. For such a braking […]
The risk of track buckling has been considered as a significant safety and operational hazard in railway companies. The cost due to inadequate management of track can be divided into […]
The contact between train wheels and rail tracks is known to induce material degradation in the form of wear and rolling contact fatigue in the railhead. Current maintenance techniques such […]
Since the Hatfield incident in the UK in 2000, the possibility of catastrophic rail failure as a result of the propagation of surface-initiated rolling contact fatigue (RCF) cracks that go […]
This thesis developed a parallel multiobjective optimisation methodology to enable fast optimisations of draft gear designs for heavy haul trains. Improvements were achieved in the development of deterministic white-box draft […]
The poor performance of transition zones in railway tracks has long been a subject of concern for the rail infrastructure managers. These zones are the discontinuities along a railway line […]
The railway track network plays an essential role of the transportation infrastructure worldwide. During operations, the ballast becomes contaminated or fouled due to the infiltration of fines from the surface, […]
Among different rail welding methods Aluminothermic welding (ATW) is the oldest and simplest procedure widely used for re-railing and replacement of defective rails. Since ATW is a cast welding process […]
The application of premium high strength rail steels has been evidenced to improve the overall performance of heavy haul operations by controlling or reducing rail degradation such as wear and […]
