Risk assessment of ground hazards along railways - Phase IV

加拿大铁路业的独特之处在于，它必须维护穿越不同自然地理区域的数万公里的轨道。评估不同自然地理和地质领域的地面灾害风险对铁路工程师提出了重大挑战，因为线性设施本身就暴露于比单一站点设施更广泛和更高频率的地面灾害。铁路沿着的地质灾害分为：土质滑坡、岩石滑坡、地面塌陷、泥石流、水流侵蚀和河流侵蚀。据铁路行业估计，这些地面灾害每年造成数百万美元的重大损失，主要是由于基础设施受损和业务中断。 所有的工程项目都有风险。我们评估这种风险的能力取决于我们对所涉及的过程和危害的理解。研究将包括（1）开发和评估监测技术，用于调查地面灾害机制和预警系统，（2）调查极端天气事件的影响和适应气候变化，（3）评估多尺度灾害;（4）评估软路基修复工作的有效性。 该计划将在阿尔伯塔大学和皇后大学与行业合作伙伴密切合作进行。这项研究的结果将为未来几十年基础设施的必要改进提供信息和贡献。这将提高加拿大铁路网络的可靠性和弹性，并使行业运营/基础设施能够适应新的铁路交通需求和极端天气事件的日益频繁。将结果传播到更广泛的技术社区和培训HQP解决真实的世界工程问题是该计划的基本要素。

The Canadian railway industry is unique in that it must maintain tens of thousands of kilometres of tracks that traverse diverse physiographic regions. Assessing ground hazard risk in diverse physiographic and geologic domains presents a significant challenge to railway engineers as linear facilities are inherently exposed to a wider variety and higher frequency of ground hazards than single site facilities. Ground hazards encountered along railways are classified as: earth landslides, rock landslides, subsidence, debris slides, flow erosion and stream erosion. These ground hazards cause a significant annual loss, estimated by the railway industry, to be in the millions of dollars, primarily from damage to infrastructure and interruption of business. All engineering projects have risk. Our ability to assess this risk is dependent on our understanding of the processes and hazards involved. Research will include (1) developing and evaluating monitoring technologies for the investigation of ground hazard mechanisms and warning systems, (2) investigating the impact of extreme weather events and adaptation to climate change, and (3) assessing multi-scale hazards; and (4) evaluate the effectiveness of soft subgrade remediation efforts. The program will be carried out at the University of Alberta and at Queen's University, in close collaboration with the industry partners. The results of this research will inform and contribute to necessary improvements to infrastructure over the next couple of decades. This will increase the reliability and resiliency of Canada's railway networks and enable industry operations/infrastructure to adapt to new rail traffic requirements and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events. The dissemination of results to the wider technical community and the training of HQP to solve real world engineering problems are essential elements of this program.