Capability

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The Centre for Railway Engineering (CRE) is committed to satisfying the needs of its customers through innovative research. Through its strong customer focus, CRE endeavours to work in partnership with the wider railway industry.

CRE employs highly qualified full-time research and technical staff with significant experience in the railway industry. We are well known for our research expertise in train dynamics, wagon and bogie dynamics, wagon/track system dynamics, erosion control of railway corridors, simulation, instrumentation and field-testing. Our physical resources include a unique laboratory purpose designed for full scale testing of bogies, wagons, locomotives and civil infrastructure. The CRE also maintains high powered computing facilities for simulation and finite element analysis.

Our commitment to applied research and customer focus results in involvement in projects into development and pre-commercialisation stages. Centre developments and innovations have resulted in five patents and a number of software packages developed to beta test stage.

Research can be commercial or public domain. Industry partners may choose the intellectual property agreement that is most suitable. Commercial research is protected by confidentiality and intellectual property agreements when required by the partners. Research outcomes are protected by copyright, patents and non-disclosure with commercialization via licensing and technology transfer to clients.

The major strengths of the centre are:

• Eighteen years of research activity and technology transfer for rail industry clients.
• Skills in fundamental research in contact mechanics, fatigue, signal processing, finite element modelling and numerical simulation with railway engineering applications.
• Capacity to collect real time data on the civil, mechanical and electrical systems using onboard and wayside instruments.
• An advanced capacity for simulation and modelling studies using an extensive range of commercial packages and in-house developed software operating in a dedicated research server network.
• Demonstrated capability of developing software packages and prototypes for application in the industry partner operations network.
• An extensive engineering laboratory infrastructure covering engineering materials, structures, mechanical systems, dynamics and impact, and power engineering and electronics.

The key areas of CRE functional expertise are:

• Longitudinal Train Dynamics
• Wagon and Bogie Dynamics
• Finite Element Modelling of Vehicle and Track Components
• Wheel/Rail Interface Mechanics
• Derailment Simulation
• Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks
• Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) and Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) approaches.
• Engineering Materials Damage Analysis and Fatigue Life Assessment
• Dynamic Analysis of Track and Civil Infrastructure
• Soil Erosion Control on Railway Batters
• Rainfall Analysis for the Design of Surface Drainage Structures
• Surface Drainage Control and Sediment Management
• Bush Fire Risk Management in railway corridors
• Design and Installation of Instrumentation for Wagons and Locomotives
• Data Processing and Analysis
• Signal Processing, Simulation and Mathematical Modelling
• Computer Programming and Application Software Development
• Rail Technology Product Evaluation
• Intelligent Systems Research
• Optimised Train Handling & Train Braking Systems
• Power Engineering and Locomotive Traction
• Development of Patent Protection and Commercialisation of research outcomes