Search results for "RAILWAY"

Optimization of the Mix-Design System for the Sub-ballast Railroad

2017

Bituminous sub-ballast is an alternative solution to the unbound granular sub-ballast used in the railway track due to several benefits that it can provide. Indeed, it contributes to maintain the moisture content in the subgrade unchanged during all year. This decreases the subgrade deterioration process. Moreover, the presence of bituminous sub-ballast can also reduce vertical stiffness variations on the track; it can have a positive effect in the maintenance needs at transition sections (bridge-embankment) and in the attenuation of the vibrations induced by the rail traffic. Despite the importance of the presence of the bituminous sub-ballast to conceive the construction and/or rehabilita…

Criteria for Laboratory Studies on Fine Soils Treated with Lime

2011

When selecting the appropriate materials for constructing road infrastructures, an important way for minimizing both the economical and environmental impact is to make use of lime for treating those natural soils that, involved in the earthwork for opening road fences, are not suitable, as they are in nature, to fulfill the specific requirements for being used as part of road construction, such as road embankments (including the capping layer) or the improved subgrade or, again, the sub-formation. From this point of view, the treatment of fine soils with lime (if needed, with lime and cement) can be considered as one of the main measures for preserving the natural environment since it fulfi…

RESTRICTIONS ON REGIONAL PASSENGER TRANSPORT DURING EPIDEMIOLOGICAL THREAT (COVID-19) – AN EXAMPLE OF THE LOWER SILESIAN VOIVODSHIP IN POLAND

2020

The beginning of 2020 was associated with the appearance of the global coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). The spread of the epidemic caused the introduction of an epidemiological emergency in Poland in early March (on March 12). This resulted in reduced public transport, including regional rail transport. In Lower Silesia, this concerned regional and fast connections. The conducted analysis concerns regional connections and is based on exploration of the spatial and the quantitative aspect of these changes. The transport offer before and after the announcing of the epidemic was analysed. The results showed that most of the transport restrictions concerned the peripheries of the voivodeship (l…

Digital image analysis technique for measuring railway track defects and ballast gradation

2018

Abstract In order to guarantee safety and driving comfort and to maintain an efficient railway infrastructure, the first step is to carefully monitor the track geometry and wear level of the materials constituting the superstructure. To that end diagnostic trains are widely used on main lines, in that they can detect several geometric track parameters and rail wear, but under no circumstances they can yet detect ballast gradation. Due to the practical implications for the planning of maintenance operations on the railway network, this article presents a “DIP” digital image processing technique for measuring the transverse profile and corrugations of the rails as well as ballast gradation. T…

A markovian model as a tool for optimization of maintenance planning on the railway lines

2008

This paper is designed to develop a procedure which defines a planning criterion for railway superstructure maintenance by means of Markov decision processes. This methodology allows to formulate a specific policy π which carries out the best configuration of budget allocation (min. Ф), and at the same time to guarantee the highest efficiency level in the railway superstructure. Thanks to the dynamic programming technique applied to decision processes, the report has examined the possibility of establishing the best management policy in order to maintain adequate safety levels of implementation and quality speed levels, in the presence of budget constraints, thus optimizing the available re…

"…a počínal tušit, že s obrazy to tady nebude jednoduché." Ekfrastyczność (w) powieści "Cesta do pekel" Václava Vokolka

2019

The article analyses the novel Cesta do pekel written by Václav Vokolek – the Czech prose writer, poet and painter – through the usage of the intersemiotic translation strategies. The plot of the text can be characterized as the contamination of the physically plausible historic world (the construction of the railway in the middle of the 19th century) with the implausible one (the infernal story) according to Lubomír Doležel’s typology. Demonstrating the changes in the arts (the clash of romanticism with realism), the novelist sensitizes the reader to the drastic introversion into nature, as exemplifi ed by the urbanization processes in the north of the Czech Republic. At the same time, the…

A grid of material and immaterial laboratories for supporting the sustainability of transportation: the RESET project in Sicily

2015

Transportation is a crucial sector, to be suitably approached in order of getting human activities in more environmentally sustainable paths. In fact, in developing, as well in less developing, countries people and freights mobility are responsible of important amount of pollutant emissions and are cause of significant levels of energy consumptions. In this paper, a Sicilian regional project is presented, aiming at establishing an interconnected grid of material and immaterial laboratories. These laboratories, that are devoted at inducing more virtuous behaviors in the transportation policies, are constituted by equipment and software tools, mainly located in the region’s universities, acti…

Development of artificial neural network for condition assessment of bridges based on hybrid decision making method – Feasibility study

2021

Abstract Managing a bridge at an appropriate level of reliability requires knowledge of its technical condition, which is decisive in terms of maintenance and repair activities. This is a multi-criteria decision-making problem which results from the need to allocate limited financial resources to this work. Although many calculation models have been suggested in published sources, none of them has ever met these requirements. The algorithm presented by the authors allows for the assessment of any number of bridges, taking into account the diversity of solutions in terms of materials and structures, and can provide a solution to this problem. This hybrid calculation model, combining the modi…

Mechanical characterisation and 3D fractional viscoelastic modelling of railway sub-ballast rubberised asphalt

La regolazione indipendente del settore ferroviario

2020

The wide regulatory power of the Independent Transport Authority on the railway sector. The National Independent Authority for Transport, imposed by European Law and established in Italy in 2013, is characterized by using wide powers of control, regulation and sanction, which cover all transport sectors. Regulatory competences seem in particular to interfere, in some areas, with the functions, also of political direction, of the State, Regional and Local Government, as well as the competences of the other administrative independent bodies such as the National Antitrust Authority or National Anti-Corruption Authority. This requires the provision of forms of coordination and cooperation beetw…