The AdapterPlus™ steering pad is a polymer component on a railcar that helps to reduce stresses on the axle as a railcar rounds a curve. One railway application requires a minimum of 240 mA to be passed through the steering pad to the rail, which activates air valves that control automated cargo gates. Currently, two copper studs are inserted into the pad to provide a conductive path. However, after continuous cyclic loading caused by normal service operation, the copper studs deform, wear, and eventually lose contact between the two surfaces rendering the pad nonconductive. One proposed solution to this problem is to create a steering pad made entirely from an electrically conductive material. The University Transportation Center for Railway Safety (UTCRS) research team has successfully created a conductive nanocomposite made from vapor grown carbon nanofibers (CNFs) and a modified form of Elastollan 1195A thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). Previous attempts to create this material were promising but failed to produce an electrically conductive specimen when injection molded. Preliminary results have shown that the new material can be injection molded to create an electrically conductive test specimen. An injection molded insert was designed, fabricated, and incorporated into the existing steering pad design for further testing. Pressure measurement film had previously been used to find the points of maximum stress inside the pad to optimize the design of the composite insert. Characterization of the resistivity of the composite material was carried out in order to verify functionality in future iterations of this product. The resistance of the composite material is expected to be non-linear with a strong dependence on load and voltage. Conductivity tests were performed using a material testing system with a compressive load ranging from 1500 pounds to 5500 pounds. The voltage at each load was also varied between 10V to 20V and the nonlinear resistance of the material was examined. The results have shown that the CNF/TPU composite is a potential replacement for the current TPU used for the pad and, with minimal modifications, can be implemented in field service operation.

Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing allows for scaled to full-scale evaluation of components without constructing full-scale vehicle prototypes. HIL is also a rapid means of performance evaluation of difficult to model components, in real-time simulation with up to full-scale components providing their own response in place of a model. HIL also provides a working tool for control algorithm refinements prior to full system integration. In hybrid and electric locomotive applications this is particularly important while choosing the battery chemistry and sizing the energy storage system. Energy storage HIL testing permits optimal sizing of battery power and energy density along with management algorithm tuning. In general, HIL provides insight into optimal locomotive powertrain design. After the development of full EV and HEV locomotive models, battery component models were replaced with real-time interfaces to lead carbon and lithium cobalt batteries, which validated the battery models and helped tune vehicle controllers for direct application onto the vehicle platform.

Often, available power from an in-vehicle energy storage system is governed by thermal limitations. Modeling of battery pack thermal response is crucial to managing its cooling system energy consumption and estimating available charge/discharge power for future locomotive tractive and regenerative effort. Active cooling through forced air flow was simulated using computer-aided design of the battery pack and its enclosure. Module scaled (series string of 54 12V batteries) testing and modeling of both air flow and temperature distribution was performed and validated for sealed lead acid carbon batteries. A controller area network and data logger collected temperature data from 218 sensors placed throughout a battery pack module during electrical loading for both switcher and over-the-road cycles while under various environmental thermal loadings. A blower on-off control algorithm was optimized to minimize energy consumption and implemented based on temperature array statistics.

Grade separations have been used along High-Speed Rail (HSR) to decrease traffic congestion and the danger that occurs at grade crossings. However, the concern with grade separations is the potential damage due to lateral impact of bridge superstructures by over-height vehicles. This is a concern with existing bridges, and lateral impact is not included in standard bridge code provisions. A new bridge technology, Hybrid Composite Beam (HCB), was proposed to meet the requirements of another HSR objective, that of a sustainable solution for the construction of new and replacement bridges in rail infrastructure. The hybrid composite beam combines advanced composite materials with conventional concrete and steel to create a bridge that is stronger and more resistance to corrosion than conventional materials. The HCB is composed of three main parts; the first is a FRP (fiber reinforced polymer) shell, which encapsulates the other two parts. The second part is the compression reinforcement which consists of concrete or cement grout that is pumped into a continuous conduit fabricated into the FRP shell. The third part of the HCB is the tension reinforcement that could consist of carbon or glass fibers, prestressed strands, or other materials that are strong in tension, which is used to equilibrate the internal forces in the compression reinforcement. The combination of conventional materials with FRP exploits the inherent benefits of each material and optimizes the overall performance of the structure. The behavior of this novel system has been studied during the last few years and some vertical static tests have been performed, but no dynamic or lateral impact tests have been conducted yet. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of HCB when subjected to lateral impact loading caused by over-height vehicles. This paper explains the advantages of HCB when used in bridge infrastructures. The commercial software ABAQUS was used to perform the finite element (FE) modeling of a 30ft long HCB. Test data was used to validate the results generated by FE analysis. A constant impact loading with a time duration of 0.1 second was applied to an area at the mid-span of the HCB. Lateral deflection and stress distribution were obtained from FE analysis, and local stress concentration can be observed from the stress contour. Full-scale beam dynamic testing will be conducted in the future research to better study the behavior of HCB when subjected to over-height vehicles.

This paper analyzes alternatives to carbon-based fuels, including ‘clean’ electric locomotive technology. Electrification of the North American railway network leaves many questions to be researched, such as: sufficient power capacity, ‘clean’ sources, distribution costs, infrastructure costs, logistics issues, legislative barriers, and resulting changes to business practises. A comprehensive review of incentives, logistics, and barriers was done to shed some light on emerging research needs to fill knowledge gaps in time to sustain industry competitiveness, and to meet the demands of a more sustainable future for North American freight, commuter, and tourism rail. Given prohibitively high costs and logistics of rail electrification, North American researchers have started focusing on ultra-capacitors and batteries. Previous research suggests that a hybrid capacitor/battery equipped locomotive would work, all within the existing envelope of locomotive chassis, and with much lower infrastructure costs. The transition in NA would be faster, at a much lower cost, including high speed passenger rail. However, no one has yet done the necessary research to verify this hypothesis.

The emissions of a GE P-32 passenger locomotive was not adversely impacted by the use of B20 biodiesel blended fuel. Amtrak, with the support of the Federal Railroad Administration operated a P-32 passenger locomotive in revenue service for a period of 12 months, operating on a blend of 20% pure biodiesel and 80% #2 ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel. The P-32 locomotive used in the biodiesel demonstration was a Tier 0 12-cyclinder engine, built in 1991. The locomotive was operated on the Heartland Flyer route, providing passenger train service between Oklahoma City, OK and Fort Worth, TX. The biodiesel test locomotive maintained the Heartland Flyer train schedule 331 times by providing one roundtrip daily between the two cities, for a total of 410 miles. Following the in-service trial, the locomotive underwent emissions testing at the GE Transportation’s locomotive emissions test facility in Erie, PA. The locomotive was tested according to the US Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) Title 40 Part 92. The test results show that operating the P-32 passenger locomotive on B20 biodiesel blended fuel for 12 months did not adversely affect the emissions of the locomotive. The paper will outline the procedure and results from the emissions testing of the B20 fuel in a passenger locomotive engine, after having used B20 fuel for 12-months in revenue service. The paper will show that the locomotive B20 emissions for hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) particulate matter (PM), and smoke opacity were not adversely affected, and were well below the EPA locomotive emissions limit. Due to warranty issues, GE permitted use of B20 for this study however GE does not approve use of B20 under its warranty provisions.

This paper will present the criteria for the marketing, design and operational success of a transload facility. As the nation’s highway infrastructure continues to struggle with needed maintenance, the cost of fuel continues at historical highs coupled with a desire to reduce the overall carbon emissions of moving freight, alternative methods of moving product are required by shippers. Rail provides alternatives to accomplish the movement of intercity freight while addressing many of these concerns. Transload facilities, taking product from trucks to railcars or vice versa, provide a mechanism for non-railroad served industries to utilize rail transportation. The design of the facility, its level or frequency of service from the railroad, its internal layout, operational and inventory systems, and material handling systems for the product being handled are all important considerations that must be understood and optimized for these facilities to be successful. Profitable operation and growth of a transload facility is a challenge met by combining knowledge about trucking, warehousing and railroading. After managing a large transload network while with a Class One railroad, owning and operating transloads, designing them for a variety of commodities, and interviewing Operators across the country over the past 15 years, I have found a few critical success criteria to be consistent across all transloads.

This paper presents the sustainability assessment and a prototype sustainability model, completed by students in the Michigan Tech University (MTU) Transportation Enterprise (TE), for a concrete tie production plant owned by L.B. Foster’s wholly owned subsidiary, CXT, Inc. (CXT), located in Spokane, WA. The paper will provide a short introduction of the Undergraduate Enterprise Program at Michigan Tech, discuss the organizational commitments, coordination and communication needed between partners to conduct the project and highlight some of the challenges and lessons learned during the project. It will summarize the outcomes of the project investigations and modeling efforts with emphasis on the prototype environmental sustainability model to calculate the carbon footprint of the CXT plant and to assess possible areas of improvement. The paper will also review parallel research conducted on recycling methods for concrete ties.

Thermite welding is a simple and cost-effective process widely used in the field for rail repair and joining. Despite the well-accepted use of this technology, there is a major concern regarding the soundness of the weldments which are often found to be very sensitive to wear and cracking. In order to gain a better understanding of the structural factors that contribute to the performance behavior of thermite welds, systematic microstructural analyses of a series of welds was conducted. Of particular interest in this study was to carefully examine and compare the microstructure of the weld metal, heat affected zone (HAZ) and base metal of a series of thermite welded samples with different carbon content. The results of this work revealed the presence of proeutectoid cementite along the prior austenite grain boundaries at the three locations examined. In addition, microhardness evaluation of the welds revealed that substantial softening takes place in the HAZ, independent of the chemical composition of the rails or weld processing conditions. The presence of proeutectoid cementite along the prior austenite grain boundaries and the softening that takes place in the HAZ are two of the structural factors most likely responsible for the lower than expected wear behavior observed in welded or repaired rail steels. This paper will present and discuss the microstructural and processing factors associated with the formation of proeutectoid cementite and the causes leading to the observed softening.

Ball or roller bearings have much in common with a railway wheel running on a rail. Both have high Hertzian stresses and are subject to rolling contact fatigue. Silicone Nitride (Si3N4), a Technical Ceramic, has now firmly established itself in the engineering marketplace as part of a hybrid bearing, where the rolling elements are silicone nitride and the races are steel. The paper explores the possibility of a Silicon Nitride/steel wheel/rail combination and finds that, because Silicon Nitride has a higher Modulus of Elasticity, it is not suitable as a direct replacement on existing systems, because it would produce a smaller contact patch and greater contact stress. The low toughness of Silicon Nitride in comparison to steel could be an obstacle to its general railway use, however, it could made into a composite material in the same manner as Carbon Reinforced Silicon Carbide (C/SiC) is used in brake discs. There is a possibility that, under the right conditions, Silicon Nitride could return very low wear rates, because of its extreme hardness, and because it’s excellent resistance to rolling contact fatigue (noted in hybrid bearings). This could give a wheel high mileage, without the need to remove fatigued material by controlled wear or by turning. A promising future application for the material is a cable-hauled system, where the predicted lower adhesion between Silicon Nitride and a steel rail is not a problem and the wheels are not required to be conductive.

A common solution to reducing NOX emissions to meet new emissions regulations has been lean burn combustion. However, with very lean air/fuel (A/F) ratios, both carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions become unacceptably high due to spark misfiring and combustion instabilities. In order to mitigate this, a prechamber ignition system is often used to stabilize combustion at very lean A/F ratios. In this paper, the heat release in a retrofit prechamber system installed on a large bore natural gas engine is examined. The heat release analysis is based on dynamic pressure measurements both in the main chamber and prechamber. The Woschni correlation is utilized to model heat transfer. Based on heat release modeling and test data analysis the following observations are made. Main chamber heat release rates are much more rapid for prechamber ignition compared to spark ignition. During combustion in the prechamber much of the fuel flows into the main chamber un-reacted. About 52% of the mass in the prechamber, at ignition, flows into the main chamber during prechamber combustion. Prechamber total heat release, pressure rise, and maximum jet velocity all increase with increasing prechamber equivalence ratio. Prechamber combustion duration and coefficient of variation of peak pressure are minimized at a prechamber equivalence ratio of about 1.09, which corresponds roughly to the equivalence ratio of highest laminar flame speed. The above performance optimum does not correspond to the equivalence ratio where the most prechamber energy is released.