Contribution to Railway Track Maintenance Planning from the Analysis of Dynamic Movements of Trains

Dynamic movements of trains in relation to the track have a significant impact on the displacement stability of rail vehicles, having effects inclusive of operational safety. Although there are numerous approaches to track maintenance planning, most of them are based solely on long-term geometric degradation assessments without taking into account any dynamic parameters in assessing operational safety or establishing means to predict future rolling stock accelerations relative to the track in order to develop safer maintenance plans. This paper introduces a method of track maintenance planning based on geometric degradation modeling and prediction of rolling stock vertical and horizontal acceleration. The goal is to establish how frequent geometric maintenance is necessary to ensure operational safety under geometric and dynamic criteria. This approach is based on regression models defined from geometric and dynamic inspection data. The method was applied in a passenger railway and obtained expressive results that corroborated the need of considering dynamic aspects on maintenance planning, as sections of the analyzed railway were identified with operation becoming unsafe, under the dynamic criterion, before the geometric safety tolerances are reached. This work is intended not only to propose a planning method but also to present to the scientific and technical communities a novel approach to be explored and developed in future research. The obtained results, therefore, do more than confirm quantitatively the relevance of this analysis; they also demonstrate qualitatively how promising the development of this thematic field is. In this regard, this work also presents in its conclusions some research opportunities to be explored for the development of this theme.

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