Major rail engineering research projects bring innovative solutions

The project In2Rail was part of three ‘lighthouse’ projects kick-starting the Shift2Rail joint undertaking to which the University’s Institute of Railway Research (IRR) contributed to several facets.

At the IRR in Huddersfield, Head of Research and Principal Enterprise Fellow Dr Yann Bezin and Industrial Fellow Dr Dimitrios Kostovasilis had key roles in two work packages in the Smart Infrastructure category.

They investigated a range of radical innovations to switches and crossings, the components of the railway that are most susceptible to damage and fatigue. Among the new concepts examined by the IRR researchers and their partners, headed by Network Rail, were unconventional methods for guiding rail vehicles without the need for switches, including an engineering solution known as flange back steering.

Advanced simulation software was used to evaluate the potential of this. Despite the obvious benefit of removing the weakest component of current switches, the radical solution proves to bring additional challenges, but a stepping stone has been reached in its understanding.

However, the Huddersfield researchers believe that radical concepts evaluated so far would really emerge together with self-steering rail vehicles abilities, belonging to the longer term future and that in the meantime a step change approach, improvements to existing switches, would mean quicker benefits. The team led by Dr Bezin at Huddersfield are already actively working on this aspect in the Shift2Rail project In2Track.

For their contribution to another In2Rail work package, Dr Bezin, Ilaria Grossoni, Dr Sergio Neves and Dr Sam Hawksbee carried out a track settlement analysis of the transition zone between slab track and ballasted track. This is a point that can suffer accelerated degradation because of higher dynamic loads, and the rail engineering company Rhomberg Sersa has developed an innovative transition system.

Network Rail has begun to employ this at a number of UK locations, at transition between slab track on bridges or tunnels and ballasted track on either side. Dr Bezin and his team of researchers carried out numerical modelling that will lead to greater scientific understanding of the issues surrounding transitions zones and their remedial solutions.

Now Dr Bezin, Dr Kostovasilis, Ilaria Grossoni and Dr Sam Hawksbee are preparing papers on flange-back steering, settlement analysis and on transition zones that will feature at the Fourth International Conference on Railway Technology: Research, Development and Maintenance, taking place in Barcelona at the start of September.