Railway Infrastructures


Description:
In the 21st century, with the globalization playing an increasingly important and influential role in societies and markets, the development of new transport infrastructures that allow an efficient movement of passengers and goods is of the utmost importance. Railway transport has been playing a key role in this context, contributing to the sustainable development of countries, both in terms of economic growth and social development. This type of transport has several advantages over others, mostly related with the lower transportation costs, the lower environmental impact and safety. Additionally, the reduction in travel time due to the increase of speed, along with an improvement in passenger comfort, also contributes to the greater competitiveness of rail transport. 

In order to achieve better performance in terms of travelling time, the railway infrastructure has grown significantly in the last decades, especially with the construction of new bridges and tunnels. In terms of high speed railways, for example, the necessity to ensure smoother tracks with larger curve radius resulted in new railway lines with a high percentage of viaducts and tunnels. Countries such as China and Japan, for example, have high speed networks in which some of the lines have more than 75% of viaducts. Therefore, to face these challenges, the research related to railway infrastructures is becoming increasingly important among the railway engineering community.

Within the framework outlined above, this symposium aims to bring together the latest achievements, research and studies regarding the planning, design, construction, monitoring, maintenance and management of the railway infrastructure. 

Theoretical, experimental and computational investigations or a combination of them, are welcome to this session. Expected papers should cover various types of railway infrastructure such as bridges, viaducts, tunnels, track and transition zones. Other relevant topics for discussion will be: vehicle structure interaction, track bridge interaction, soil structure interaction, train-induced ground vibrations, geotechnical aspects (earthworks, embankments and stabilisation), reliability and runnability of railway infrastructure in strong winds and/or earthquake-prone areas.

Keywords:
Railways, bridges and viaducts, tunnels, track, transition zones, earthworks, embankments.

Chairs:
Prof. Diogo Ribeiro, ISEP - Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto
Diogo Ribeiro is Adjunct Professor of the Civil Engineering Department of School of Engineering of Polytechnic of Porto (ISEP-IPP) and Director of the Civil Engineering Degree. He received his PhD Degree from University of Porto in Civil Engineering field (2012). His main research interest/expertise are: dynamic of railway bridges, train-bridge interaction, dynamic tests, modal identification, calibration of numerical models, genetic algorithms, validation, fatigue, damage identification, automatic calculation of structures and BIM methodologies.

Dr. Pedro Aires Montenegro, FEUP - Universidade do Porto
Pedro Montenegro holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Porto (2015) and is currently working as a researcher at the Department of Civil Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP). His main research interest/expertise are: train structure interaction, evaluation of train running safety against natural hazards (wind and earthquake), bridge dynamics and fatigue of railway bridges. He is also an auxiliary professor in the Universidade Lusófona do Porto since 2018.

Dr. Andréas Andersson, KTH - Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm
Andreas holds a PhD in Bridge Engineering from KTH (2011), Sweden. He works at the Division of Structural Engineering and Bridges at KTH and his main research focus is dynamics of railway bridges, including soil-structure interaction, vehicle-track-bridge interaction, vibration mitigation, model updating and experimental testing. He is also a senior technical specialist at the Swedish Transport Administration (since 2004), working with different aspects of railway bridges, load capacity assessment and regulations for high-speed lines.

Prof. María D. Martínez-Rodrigo , UJI - Universitat Jaume I, Castellón
M.D. Martínez-Rodrigo is an Associate Professor and member of the Mechanical Engineering and Construction Department of Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain. She obtained her Master's degree in Structural Engineering from the University of California in 2001, San Diego and her PhD at Polytechnical University of Valencia in 2009. Her main research lines are railway induced vibrations on bridges and building structures and passive control applied to dynamic problems related to traffic or earthquake loads.