Facilitating Heavier Trains through Smart Monitoring of Railway Track

Project Description

To reduce the carbon footprint of freight transport, railways need to be more competitive as their footprint is considerably less than roads. Railway transport can be made more competitive and their carbon footprint further reduced, by increasing train weights. This is a win-win proposal – a heavier train reduces the cost per tonne carried and requires less fuel per tonne carried. As the cost is reduced, a heavier train takes more freight off roads.

The challenge with increasing train weight is the infrastructure – the bridges and the track foundation. The latter will be addressed here, specifically, it will be shown that monitoring railway track using sensors in existing trains can prove that they are not deteriorating and are not generating ]risk of trains overturning. Recently, track is monitored by periodic measurements using specialist Monitoring Vehicles. Typically, these are commissioned to drive over the track about twice per year which is insufficient.

We will develop a vehicle/track dynamic interaction model that calculates the vibration of trains as they pass over a flexible track (tracks may appear solid but they do deflect under the train weight, especially in poor ground conditions). The model will be stochastic, allowing for the variability in the system – speeds, weights, suspension stiffnesses and so on). A process of Inverse Dynamics, recently developed in UCD, will be used to solve the inverse problem, i.e., to calculate the stiffness under each sleeper of the railway track from the measured accelerations on the train. This is the monitoring system – it will allow the railway authority to continuously monitor the condition of the track, using sensors on passing trains. Finally, having found the track stiffnesses, a stability calculation will determine the risk of any train overturning if the ground conditions are insufficient for the weight of the train.