Gravity sensing for rail construction feasibility study

重力感应用于铁路建设的可行性研究

• 批准号: 10063364
• 金额: $ 3.17万
• 依托单位: SILICON MICROGRAVITY LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10063364
• 关键词: Gravity; sensing; rail; construction; feasibility

Identifying subsurface hazards is a critical issue for railway construction. Finding unexpected features during construction can have major cost and time impacts. Similarly, if not identified hazards can cause subsidence and deformation during the life of the track. Subsurface hazards may be man-made such as old minings or tunnels or natural in the form of sinkholes or karsts which can form over time.Traditional site survey technologies such as ground penetrating radar, electro-magnetics and seismic are used extensively for site surveying but all have limitations. Gravity sensing has long been identified as a measurement which would add significant value to site surveys. Any subsurface feature that has a change in density will create a change in gravity. But until now a commercially viable sensing system has been lacking.Silicon Microgravity has spent seven years of research and development on MEMS relative gravimeters. A prototype surface system has been successfully tested at the National Buried Infrastructure Facility in 2021 and the commercial prototype will be available at the end of Q1 2023\. This Project is a feasibility study to determine the applicability of gravity surveying to GCRE but also to the wider rail construction industry.The proposed project will start by working with GCRE to identify potential subsurface hazards at the site and agreeing a set of scenarios. This will involve defining the type of the hazard, the depth, size, and density versus the surrounding material. This data will then be used to forward model the gravity anomaly that the hazard would create. This will then be evaluated versus the projected sensitivity of the SMG gravimeter to determine which hazards can be identified in a real-world scenario. Using the forward modelling, a gravity station survey program will be developed to determine optimal survey station data density for hazard detection over large areas. This will demonstrate the commercial viability of SMG gravity surveys for site surveys at GCRE and more broadly in the rail industry.

地下灾害的识别是铁路建设的一个关键问题。在构建过程中发现意外的功能可能会产生重大的成本和时间影响。同样，如果未识别出危险，则可能导致轨道寿命期间的沉降和变形。地下灾害可能是人为的，如旧矿或隧道，也可能是天坑或岩溶等自然灾害，这些灾害会随着时间的推移而形成。传统的现场勘测技术，如探地雷达、电磁学和地震学，广泛用于现场勘测，但都有局限性。长期以来，重力感应一直被认为是一种测量方法，可为现场勘测增加重要价值。任何密度发生变化的地下特征都会引起重力的变化。但到目前为止，还没有一个商业上可行的传感系统。硅微重力公司花了七年时间研究和开发MEMS相对重力仪。原型地面系统已于2021年在国家地下基础设施设施成功测试，商业原型将于2023年第一季度末上市。本项目是一项可行性研究，旨在确定重力测量对GCRE以及更广泛的铁路建设行业的适用性。拟议项目将首先与GCRE合作，确定现场潜在的地下灾害，并商定一系列方案。这将涉及定义危险的类型、深度、大小和密度与周围材料的关系。然后，这些数据将用于对灾害可能造成的重力异常进行正演模拟。然后将根据SMG重力仪的预计灵敏度进行评估，以确定在现实世界中可以识别哪些危害。将利用正演模型，制定一个重力站勘测方案，以确定大面积灾害探测的最佳勘测站数据密度。这将证明SMG重力测量在GCRE和更广泛的铁路行业现场测量中的商业可行性。