Short-turning Trains during Full Blockages in Railway Disruption Management

Railway operations such as any other public transport modes, follows a timetable. However, unplanned events can disrupt the operation. In such occasions the traffic controllers have to deal with the disrupted traffic. Due to the complexity of coordinating the timetable, rolling stock, and crew, the traffic controllers face difficulties handling...

Macroscopic multiple-station short-turning model in case of complete railway blockages

In case of railway disruptions, traffic controllers are responsible for dealing with disrupted traffic and reduce the negative impact for the rest of the network. In case of a complete blockage when no train can use an entire track, a common practice is to short-turn trains. Trains approaching the blockage cannot proceed according to their...

Impact of railway disruption predictions and rescheduling on passenger delays

Disruptions such as rolling stock breakdown, signal failures, and accidents are recurrent events during daily railway operation. Such events disrupt the deployment of resources and cause delay to passengers. Obtaining a reliable disruption length estimation can potentially reduce the negative impact caused by the disruption. Different factors...

Railway disruption management challenges and possible solution directions

This paper investigates the challenges of railway traffic controllers in dealing with big disruptions and the kind of support tools that could help to improve their task in terms of performance, lead time and workload. The disruption handling process can be partitioned into three phases resembling a bathtub. For each phase the essential...

A Microscopic Model for Optimal Train Short-Turnings during Complete Blockages

Currently railway traffic controllers use predefined solutions (contingency plans) to deal with a disruption. These plans are manually designed by expert traffic controllers and are specific to a certain location and timetable. With a slight change in the timetable or infrastructure, these plans might not be feasible and have to be updated....

Optimal rerouting of short-turning trains during track obstructions

Railway trafic controllers have only limited decision support to deal with disruptions. The aim of this research is to provide an algorithm to compute conflict-free routes for trains that cannot continue their planned operation due to a track obstruction. In case of complete blockage, trains need to short-turn at the closest possible station to...

Review of railway disruption management practice and literature

This paper investigates the challenges of railway traffic controllers in dealing with big disruptions and the kind of support tools that could help to improve their task in terms of performance and lead time. The disruption handling process can be partitioned into three phases according to the bathtub model and to each phase the essential...

On the use of helium-filled soap bubbles for large-scale tomographic PIV in wind tunnel experiments

The flow-tracing fidelity of sub-millimetre diameter helium-filled soap bubbles (HFSB) for low-speed aerodynamics is studied. The main interest of using HFSB in relation to micron-size droplets is the large amount of scattered light, enabling larger-scale three-dimensional experiments by tomographic PIV. The assessment of aerodynamic behaviour...

Turbulent structure of high-amplitude pressure peaks within the turbulent boundary layer

Pressure fluctuations in the turbulent boundary layer; advances in diagnostics and control

Forcing mechanisms of dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators at carrier frequency of 625 Hz

The forcing behavior of a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) actuator is investigated experimentally using a time-resolved particle image velocimetry (PIV) system in conjunction with a phase shifting technique. The spatio-temporal evolution of the induced flowfield is accurately captured within one high voltage (HV) cycle allowing the...

Counter-hairpin vortices in the turbulent wake of a sharp trailing edge

Measurement of the body force field of plasma actuators

A novel technique is proposed and investigated for the estimation of the body force field resulting from the operation of a dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator. The technique relies on the measurement of the spatio-temporal evolution of the induced velocity field using high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV). The technique has the...

Nonlinear adaptive model predictive control for ship path-following using parametric neighbouring extremal approach

Multi-pass light amplification for tomographic particle image velocimetry applications

The light source budget is a critical issue for tomographic particle image velocimetry (Tomo-PIV) systems due to its requirement for large illuminated volume and imaging at small apertures. In this work, a light amplification system based on the multi-pass concept is investigated for Tomo-PIV applications. The system design is performed on the...

Nanostructured tracers for laser-based diagnostics in high-speed flows

The potential application of aggregates of nanoparticles for high-speed flow diagnostics is investigated. Aluminum nanoparticles around 10 nm in diameter are produced by spark discharge in argon gas. Through rapid coagulation and oxidation, aggregates of small effective density are formed. They are characterized by microscopy and their...

Experimental Study on the Body Force Field of Dielectric Barrier Discharge Actuators

An experimental investigation on thrust and body force of Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) /plasma actuators aimed at low power flow control applications is presented. A parametric study on thrust is conducted for a wide range of geometrical configurations as well as several electrical operational conditions. Direct measurements of the induced...