Risk assessment of ground hazards along railways - Phase IV

加拿大铁路行业的独特之处在于，它必须维护跨越不同地理区域的数万公里的轨道。评估不同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，因为线性设施固有地暴露于比单一站点设施更广泛和更高频率的地面灾害中。铁路沿线遇到的地面灾害分为：土质滑坡、岩石滑坡、沉陷、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的损失高达数百万美元，主要是对基础设施的破坏和业务中断。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)开发和评估用于调查地面灾害机制和预警系统的监测技术；(2)调查极端天气事件的影响和对气候变化的适应；(3)评估多尺度灾害；(4)评价软基修复效果。该项目将在阿尔伯塔大学和女王大学开展，并与行业合作伙伴密切合作。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的可靠性和弹性，使工业运营/基础设施能够适应新的铁路交通要求和日益频繁的极端天气事件。将结果传播到更广泛的技术社区，并培训HQP解决现实世界的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.