Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/D033918/1
Title:	Prediction of defect development with a track system model
Principal Investigator:	Iwnicki, Professor S
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Engineering and Technology
Organisation:	Manchester Metropolitan University
Scheme:	Technology Programme (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 November 2005	Ends:	30 April 2008	Value (£):	135,477
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Transport Ops & Management
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Transport Systems and Vehicles
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
Railway track would ideally be completely smooth and would provide continuous support for railway vehicles running on it. In practice the track and supporting structure cannot be installed without irregularities and other small defects. Engineers who design and maintain the railway currently use computer simulation tools to predict the way that vehicles will respond to these defects and the way that the defects will grow.This project aims to improve the current computer tools which are not able to include some of the variations which exist in track such as local changes in the support stiffness or the sleeper type or spacing or the shape or flexibility of the rail. The current tools are base on a technique called 'multi-body systems' (MBS) where rails, sleepers, wheels etc are modelled as rigid bodies and connected together by springs and dampers. An alternative technique used by engineering designers breaks the bodies down into small 'finite elements' (FE). An FE analysis allows flexibility and changes in properties such as stiffness to be modelled very accurately.This project aims to combine the MBS and FE techniques to develop a new computer simulation method for analysis of track. This will allow better prediction of the forces between the wheels and the rails as a vehicle runs over typical track. This in turn will allow track and vehicle designers to use this information to improve track design and to predict and control defects before they become a risk. Vehicle designers and operators will also benefit from more accurate information about the way that the track will respond under the vehicle and will allow suspension design to be tuned to give the best and safest vehicle performance.
Key Findings
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Organisation Website:	http://www.mmu.ac.uk