COMMENT
Building a bridge R
RUKA has grown from a small virtual group of universities aiming to link rail-
related research and expertise to the industry into an organisation spanning around 40 universities, with secure funding for the future and a new approach that brings together those with problems to solve and those with innovative ideas and skills.
Simon Iwnicki and Anson Jack, co-chairs of the RRUKA, described how far the organisation has come and their focus for the future.
There are several ways in which the body works to link up rail and research, the co-chairs explained. A RRUKA representative sits on the industry’s Technical Strategy Leadership Group (TSLG), which meets regularly to consider and commission research, and there are multiple events organised to promote discussion of ideas and solutions to railway challenges.
RRUKA will facilitate funding for a consortium of universities to undertake relevant research, which could lead to the development of new products or working practices.
He added: “The initial thing is about putting brains together with problems and coming out with solutions that both feed academic research capability whilst addressing industry challenges.”
Simon Iwnicki, co-chair for the academic side of the organisation, whose ‘day job’ is Professor of Railway Engineering at Huddersfi eld University, added: “There are some quite innovative and interesting projects that probably wouldn’t have gone ahead otherwise.”
These include the development of an active vibration sensor to protect sensitive elements of railway infrastructure by transforming an existing component into a sensor to monitor changing behaviour and potential failures, as well as examples that optimise maintenance processes and minimise the impact of maintenance.
The projects all have an industry mentor to steer researchers in the right direction and ensure they will be of practical use in solving real industry problems, Iwnicki said.
“We hope that the most promising of these will go forward and attract further major funding from within industry or government.”
Challenges and solutions
This is the “main plank” of RRUKA achievement: organising workshops to bring the two elements together via a bridge of facilitation.
Anson Jack, deputy chief executive of the RSSB and the founding industry co-chair of the RRUKA, explained: “We put universities and industry together in brainstorming mode, with the industry identifying a set of problems or challenges and the universities – with their brains, inspiration and innovation – thinking about what they’ve got or what they’re interested in, [which] could help to address the industry challenges.”
This covers all kinds of topics, from wheel/ rail technologies to developing a 24-7 railway.
18 | rail technology magazine Jun/Jul 12
Although this is the main format for developing solutions, RRUKA also sets up more general networking events, and events that are academic-led to demonstrate their current areas of research and the potential applications in the railway industry. In this scenario, the industry partners would then consider if there are any challenges which are waiting for this type of research.
The different approaches allow for a wide range of ideas and problems to be considered, providing a greater chance of fi nding solutions. The industry is facing a number of challenges at the moment, Iwnicki said: “There are high costs in bringing a new vehicle into the market – lots of barriers are putting costs in the way, and bringing some quite novel ideas from academia might work quite well in this case,
Unexpected sources
To get funding, RRUKA organises events to bring together as wide a range as possible of people working in different areas. RSSB puts up research funding for feasibility studies and applicants have to work together in consortia of at least two academic partners.
Membership of the association is open to any university, Jack continued, even those that do not have specifi c rail courses or research.
“The principle is, we just don’t know where the good ideas are, where the innovation might come from,” he said. “It may be that the solutions to some of the industry’s challenges will come from unexpected sources. That’s what we’re trying to enable here.”
All images on this page © Manchester Metropolitan University
Professor Simon Iwnicki and Anson Jack – co-chairs of the Rail Research United Kingdom Association (RRUKA) – spoke to RTM about bringing academia and industry together to provide solutions for the rail network.
so it’s moving towards the academic-led type of event, although it is focused on an industry problem.”
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