Background:
Traditional railway foundation or substructure has become
increasingly overloaded in recent years, due to the introduction of
safer, faster and heavier trains. A lack of substructure
reengineering has resulted in maintenance cycles becoming more
frequent and increasingly expensive. Early and accurate assessment
of track substructure components will facilitate cost effective
maintenance. The current assessment is usually time consumable,
expensive and not accurate enough.
Objective:
The main goal of this project is to achieve a robust and cost
effective assessment technique for rail substructure maintenance.
The non-destructive devices that can assess ballast and formation
conditions, including ground penetrating radar and similar
technologies will be investigated.
Project scope:
This project will collect and
critically review the latest information on existing and emerging
non-destructive techniques for railway ballast and formation in the
world. Accordingly, we aim to identify the most suitable approach
for Australian trackbed assessment to improve the maintenance
guidelines.
Benefits:
The project will 1) produce
maintenance guidelines through a cost effective track assessment,
2) reduce required track possession time, which will lead to cost
saving and 3) establish efficient targeting of track maintenance
and renewal
Expected outcomes:
The main
output will be a rigorous technological process and package for
enhancing the trackbed maintenance procedures based on accurate and
cost effective assessment and monitoring.
Project timeframe:
3 years
Project
Chair:
David Christie,
Senior Geotechnical Adviser, RailCorp
Project
Leader:
Dr Cholachat Rujikiatkamjorn, Lecturer in Civil Engineering,
University of Wollongong
Tel: (02) 4221 5852
Email: cholacha@uow.edu.au
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