Workplan
The research activities are organised around five technical work packages, each organised around a core topic necessary for the complete description of the problem dynamic.
One of these, WP1, focuses on problem identification based on inspection and monitoring data, while the second work package, WP2, focuses on the assessment and modelling of the components of railway infrastructure (such as bridges, earthworks, tracks). Data from WP 1 and WP 2 are necessary for building an Information Management System and Risk Assessment Tool, which are part of WP 3. The main objective is to develop a Decision Support Tool, which will help IMs to develop sustainable and economic maintenance, plans. Development of several innovative construction technologies for railway infrastructure rehabilitation and assessment through whole life cycle cost and environmental impact tool are covered in WP4. Management (WP 6) and dissemination and integration activities (WP 5) complete the work plan.
WP 1: FIND
Concept: How do we locate and identify risky assets before they fail?
Idea: FIND - Using a combination of remote monitoring and expert judgement including:
Improved Assessment – Recognising that visual assessment is an established part of the management of networks the project will develop new and existing concepts and test methods used in other domains for the management of assets. These will include the use of:
- drones to remotely monitor the condition of a soil or rock slopes
- Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to detecti anomalies such as ballast pockets due to depression, animal burrows and the distribution of water content.
- in-built sensor technologies to determine dynamic properties of railway tracks, locate hot spots for adverse track deterioration, sources of annoying environmental vibration emission and areas where adverse track response at increased train speed can be expected.
- A vibration based assessment method for monitoring the distress experienced by a structure when subjected to scour will be developed.
- Smart autonomous wireless sensor networks
Tasks:
Task 1.1 Inventory of Problems
Task 1.2 Location of Hotspots
Task 1.3 Monitoring of Switches, Crossings and Tracks
Task 1.4 Monitoring of Earthworks
Task 1.5 Monitoring of Structures
WP 2: ANALYSE
Concept: How do we determine the real-time safety of existing infrastructure?
Idea: ANALYSE - Using advanced models updated using monitoring data
The objective of the work package is to provide Rail Owners/Managers with best practice tools and methodologies for risk assessment of critical infrastructure elements, such as bridges, slopes, tunnels and tracks. The methodologies developed within the task will provide
Owners/Managers with the facility to optimise budgets/resources from the perspectives of
minimisation of cost for maximised service life performance. The developed methodologies will also facilitate statistical updating of predicted performance on the basis of information received from both actual and virtual SHM installations (from WP1) and therefore feed to the decision support tool (WP3) and LCA (WP4).
Tasks:
Task 2.1: Development of Probabilistic Basis for Multi Criteria Performance Optimisation of Railway Infrastructure
Task 2.2: Statistical Performance Updating from Measurements
Task 2.3: Assessment of Structures
Task 2.4: Assessment of Earthworks
Task 2.5: Assessment of Tracks
WP 3: CLASSIFY
Concept: How do we determine the level of safety and assign scarce resources?
Idea: CLASSIFY – Risk management, as an interdisciplinary infrastructure management tool.
Objectives:
- To develop an Information Management System (IMS) to store and manipulate construction records, performance monitoring, etc. for each asset.
- To develop a risk assessment methodology that takes into consideration the probability of hazard occurrence and infrastructure resilience based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative data obtained through different inspection/monitoring strategies, e.g. regular visual inspections, regular non-destructive testing.
- To develop a risk ranking methodology that takes into consideration the role of the object in the network, the states/conditions of the other objects in the network, and the ability to either manage these risks while ensuring that minimum threshold levels (e.g. for safety) are not breached.
- To develop Decision Support Tool (DST) which will help infrastructure managers in decision making process in the context of dealing with a number of defined challenges, ageing infrastructure and the effect of climate change, including bridge scour, slope stability, track and tunnel performance.
Tasks:
Task 3.1 Information Management System
Task 3.2 Risk Assessment
Task 3.3 Risk Ranking
Task 3.4 Decision Support Tool
WP 4: TREAT
Concept: How do we choose the optimal rehabilitation technique?
Idea: TREAT - Construction Techniques assessed through Probabilistic Whole Life Cycle Model
Objectives:
The objective of the work package is to provide Rail Owners/Managers with new capabilities for optimising their maintenance strategies at a network level. This will be achieved through two areas of focused activity:
- Development of modelling tools to optimise and prioritise maintenance based on a range of possible maintenance regimes, with the ability to constrain the model by cost, risk and
- operational impacts.
- Development of novel and innovative maintenance and construction techniques for rail
- infrastructure including tracks, earthworks and structures. Transferring experience from
- other sectors and regions, e.g. highways, to the rail domain.
The solutions developed under this work package will draw on the outputs from WP 1 and 2, and will demonstrate the use of the tools to improve the decision making process for the management of rail infrastructure networks. The work package will build as appropriate on the outputs of earlier EU projects funded under FP7.
The outputs from this work package will be guidelines and models that are ready for implementation, on a trial basis, within the rail industry.
Tasks:
Task 4.1 Construction Techniques for Tracks and Earthworks
Task 4.2 Construction Techniques for Structures – Bridge Abutments
Task 4.3 Traffic Flow Model
Task 4.4 Probabilistic Model for Whole Life Cycle Analyses
WP 5: Integration and Dissemination
Objectives This Work Package will ensure that the outputs from the Destination Rail project will be implemented in the practice of infrastructure management within and beyond the life of the project.
To ensure this is achieved the Work Package is organised into the following tasks;
- Demonstration projects which will be used to provide validation of techniques, and protocols at a laboratory and field scale,
- Pilot project and certification which by undertaking full-scale validation will provide evidence to certifying bodies of the robustness of the solutions developed,
- Exploitation, where a project sub-committee will identify
Tasks:
Task 5.1 Pilot Projects
Task 5.2 Demonstration Projects and Certification
Task 5.3 Exploitation
Task 5.4 Dissemination
WP6: Management
The management structure of the Destination Rail project is designed to provide a professional scientific and administrative project management environment for the project. Comprehensive project management procedures will be put in place to achieve the project objectives in a structured and controlled manner.
Executive Board (EB) comprising the coordinator and Work Package leaders will perform the main tasks outlined below.
Task 6.1 Project Coordination and Administration
Task 6.2 Organisation of Meetings
Task 6.3 Technical Reporting and Communications