Integrated Computational Materials, Process and Product Engineering – IC-MPPE 2022

The SBB infrastructure is one of the most densely used networks in the world, with heavy, slow freight and fast, frequent passenger traffic running on the same tracks.
The maintenance of the assets is a major challenge, because service interruptions for maintenance have to be integrated into the timetable for a very long time (> 1 year).
Based on rail treatment, the presentation shows which...

With current development in sensor technologies, data processing, numerical simulations, and life prediction methodologies, there are increasing possibilities for monitoring and predicting track health. This has led to an increased interest in so-called “digital twins”, i.e. digital models of the actual railway track. Ideally, a “digital twin” should be updated as the track characteristics...

A railway network consists of myriad important components that finally form a smoothly running railway infrastructure when optimally coordinated upon each other. Switches are of utmost importance in this context, as they allow trains to change between tracks during ongoing operation and thus enable trouble-free services. Such functionality is naturally associated with high costs, as the moving...

Railway turnouts feature discontinuities in wheel-rail contact geometry and track stiffness. These discontinuities results in large dynamic contact forces causing degradation of the rail surfaces and track irregularities over time.
Currently, researchers focus mostly on one damage mechanism at the time, however, the interplay and interconnection between those mechanisms have not yet been...

Various different damage mechanisms driven by local contact loads, contribute to material degradation during long-term railway operations. To assess the material specific damage behavior in crossings a numerical framework is proposed to predict the damage evolution based on three contact parameters. The framework transfers in-service load conditions to the local damage models using three...

The presented work shows a hybrid model based and data driven condition monitoring approach for railway crossings. A virtual sensor concept is used to estimate the location and the length of the transition area. The transition area is a well-known crossing state indicator, which is evaluated by service technicians during visual inspections to rate the crossing condition. This feature can be...