Assessment of long-term deformation of a tunnel in soft rock by utilizing particle swarm optimized neural network

The continuous monitoring of long-term performance of tunnels constructed in soft rock masses shows that the rock mass deformations continue after construction, albeit at a rate that reduces with time. This is in contrast with NATM postulates which assume deformation stabilizes shortly after tunnel construction. This paper proposes the...

A multiobjective decision‐making model for risk‐based maintenance scheduling of railway earthworks

Aged earthworks constitute a major proportion of European rail infrastructures, the re-placement and remediation of which poses a serious problem. Considering the scale of the networks involved, it is infeasible both in terms of track downtime and money to replace all of these assets. It is, therefore, imperative to develop a rational means...

Categorization of the condition of railway embankments using a multi-attribute utility theory

In the current economic climate, it is crucial to optimize the use of all resources regarding railway infrastructure maintenance. In this paper, a multi-attribute decision support framework is applied to categorize railway embankments in order to prioritize maintenance activities. The paper describes a methodology to first determine the...

Evolution of Decision Support Systems for Railway Infrastructure Managers

Infrastructure maintenance is a complex task due to operational needs of service quality, availability demands, traffic intensity, and budget constraints. Traditionally, maintenance decisions are based on infrastructure managers' experiences, judgments, and available choices. Though, the technology push and the availability of an abundance of...

Trends in Enhancement of Safety Aspects of Existing Railway Infrastructure

Since more than 95% of the existing European railway network is older than 100 years, the ageing has unavoidably caused its gradual degradation and there is currently a strong need for risk assessment associated with this type of infrastructure. To increase the safety aspects, as well as to reduce the cost of remediation, railway infrastructure...

Recent development and remaining challenges in determining unique bridge scour performance indicators

There have been significant developments in the area of vibration-based bridge scour monitoring in recent years. Traditional scour monitoring using either visual assessment or diving inspections are now recognised to be very unreliable and highly subjective. There has been a concerted effort to move towards reliable systems capable of either...