Track & trackside Faster, faster, faster
The future of high and ultra-speed trains has arrived and work at Heriot-Watt University under the direction of Professor Peter Woodward, the Atkins Professor of High Speed Rail, is looking towards the development of the track infrastructure required to support high and ultra-speed trains
I
magine a world where you can travel at 500 km/h between major cities relaxing in comfortable seats, sipping a glass of wine, working on the laptop and walking to the buffet car. My work involves modeling the challenges that high-speed represents such as track dynamics and passenger comfort combined with minimising ground vibration and developing track forms that are fit for high capacity loading with the minimum of track maintenance requirements. At these high speeds we need to think about analysing the train and track as a combined system, i.e. we need to adopt an holistic approach to look at how the train is interacting with the ground and vice a versa. The research we are undertaking is looking at how track deflections interact
with the train suspension systems and hence how it affects passenger comfort levels. For high capacity lines, continuous use by high-speed trains can place high demands on the track components and we need to examine which type of track structure is most effective for a particular line and speed, both from an engineering perspective and from a financial perspective.
Compete at an international level The Centre of Excellence for High Speed Rail has been set up by Heriot-Watt University and by Atkins to look at all of these issues. The new Centre will represent the ‘go to place’ for testing new ideas in high-speed trains and will allow the UK to compete at the international level in a rapidly developing global market
for high-speed design and construction. The centre will be linked to some of the top research centres across the world and allow the development of international collaboration to push forward the boundaries of high speed into the realm of ultra-high speed. Heriot-Watt University already houses the UK’s largest railway bed test track facility called GRAFT II (geopavement and railway accelerated fatigue testing). The facility is used by academia and industry to examine the long-term settlement behavior of track, particularly new track forms such as polymer reinforced track structures. The rig is capable of loading millions of cycles in a relatively short period of time at rates and loads similar to operational track conditions. It is currently being
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