Impact of transient aerodynamics on railway infrastructure and operations

The movement of rail vehicles creates a variety of aerodynamic features which impact on passenger comfort, safety and reliability of services. Railway standards and certification ensure such criteria are met by all services but it has been shown that in some cases these standards are conservative and inhibit faster operation by modern rolling stock, for example by imposing speed restrictions through some tunnels. As part of existing ongoing research a large body of measurements of transient aerodynamic features have been measured on an operational train. Such data potentially represent an opportunity to review the existing railway standards in terms of a probabilistic risk assessment and make recommendations about where restrictions are overly conservative. The project would involve analysis of the data collected, modelling of specific events to validate understanding, conducting risk assessments and making recommendations. The project might also involve additional full-scale measurements, model-scale or computational modelling of specific cases where appropriate. Such work would be conducted in conjunction with a range of industry stakeholders and would seek to make recommendations for changes to appropriate standards.
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