Optimisation of railway track maintenance and renewal works by genetic algorithms

Railway track maintenance services aim to shorten the time of removing failures on the railways. One of the most important element that shorten the repair time is the quick access to the failure site with an appropriate equipment. The use of road-rail vehicles is becoming increasingly important in this field. In this type of constructions, it is possible to use proven road vehicles such as self-propelled machines or trucks running on wheels with tires. Equipping these vehicles with a parallel rail drive system allows for quick access to the failure site using both roads and railways. Steel rail wheels of road-rail vehicles are designed for specific applications. Since the total weight of vehicle is a crucial parameter for roadworthiness, the effort is made to minimize the mass of rail wheels. The wheel under consideration is mounted directly on the hydraulic motor. This method of assembly is structurally convenient, as no shafts or intermediate couplings are required. On the other hand, it results in strict requirements for the wheel geometry and can cause significant stress concentration. Therefore, the problem of wheel geometry optimization is discussed. Consideration is given to the use of ER8 steel for railway application and 42CrMo4 high-strength steel. Finite element analysis within Ansys software and various optimization tools and methods, such as random tool, subproblem approximation method and first-order method are applied. The obtained results allow to minimize the rail wheel mass with respect to the used material. Moreover, computational demands and methods leading to the best results are compared.

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On the Theory by Linear Programming for the Planning of Railway-Track Maintenance and its Applications

Transactions of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers ◽

10.2208/jscej1949.1957.47_60 ◽

1957 ◽

Vol 1957 (47) ◽

pp. 60-66

Author(s):

Isamu Kobayashi ◽

Hisao Goto ◽

Tsuna Sasaki

Keyword(s):

Linear Programming ◽

Railway Track ◽

Track Maintenance

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Probabilistic evaluation of the railway track infrastructure components failure risk

MATEC Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/matecconf/201823001017 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 230 ◽

pp. 01017

Author(s):

Anatoliy Shtompel ◽

Liudmyla Trykoz ◽

Dmytro Borodin ◽

Andrii Ismagilov ◽

Yaroslav Chmuzh

Keyword(s):

Accumulation Rate ◽

Forecast Model ◽

Operating Conditions ◽

Railway Track ◽

Track Maintenance ◽

Failure Risk ◽

Freight Traffic ◽

Probabilistic Evaluation ◽

Operational Life ◽

First Time

The permanent way components are of key importance for safe operation of a rail way. The country regulations, in particular in Ukraine, specify the operational life limits for the permanent way but they do not define any tool or method to predict deterioration of the permanent way condition over time. The study is aimed to develop a method for assessing failure risk of the permanent way components in operation. There was a method offered to evaluate risk of failure of the permanent way components of the welded tracks, which considers accumulated freight load on a rail section. Each element of the permanent way, such as rails, fasteners, sleepers, ballast layer, accumulates defects and deformations. The accumulation rate is different for the above components and depends on freight traffic. There was probability of failure-free operation calculated for each component for the first time and an integral fatigue index of the construction has been offered which considers freight traffic accumulated load. There was a mathematical failure forecast model developed which allows planning of track maintenance. The model allows to take into account operating conditions of a railway section. The results of simulation are presented in various diagrams.

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Railway track maintenance using the Stoneblower

Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Transport ◽

10.1680/tran.2003.156.3.155 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 156 (3) ◽

pp. 155-167 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

P. I. Fair ◽

W. F. Anderson

Keyword(s):

Railway Track ◽

Track Maintenance

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A numerical study of the influence of lateral geometry irregularities on mechanical deterioration of freight tracks

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part F Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit ◽

10.1177/0954409712445115 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 226 (6) ◽

pp. 575-586 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Kalle Karttunen ◽

Elena Kabo ◽

Anders Ekberg

Keyword(s):

Numerical Study ◽

Contact Point ◽

Rolling Contact Fatigue ◽

Contact Fatigue ◽

Field Measurements ◽

Rolling Contact ◽

Railway Track ◽

Operational Conditions ◽

Track Geometry ◽

Track Maintenance

Optimisation of railway track maintenance requires knowledge of how a deteriorated track geometry will affect subsequent loading and damage of the track. This is the scope of the current study where, in particular, the influence on track shift forces and rolling contact fatigue is investigated through numerical simulations. To this end, track geometries are obtained from field measurements. Lateral irregularities are extracted and scaled to represent different levels of geometry deterioration. Multibody simulations of dynamic train–track interaction featuring two freight wagon types are performed under different operational conditions. Track shift forces and rolling contact fatigue damage are further evaluated from simulation results. It is found that track shift forces tend to follow a normal distribution for moderate levels of lateral track geometry irregularities, and that an approximate linear relationship between standard deviations of lateral irregularities and track shift forces can be established. The relation between lateral track irregularity magnitude and rolling contact fatigue is more complex. Increasing levels of lateral irregularities will decrease the fraction of curve length affected by rolling contact fatigue for sharp curves, whereas for shallow curves it increases. As detailed in the article, this is caused by the lateral movement of the contact point as imposed by the track irregularities. Furthermore, the influence of wheel/rail friction and wear is investigated.

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