• Journal of The Korean Society For Urban Railway
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.249-257
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• 2018

The number of deaths for railway traffic accidents is mainly caused by working close to the track, or when unauthorized passage pass through the track. The safety fences are being used to ensure safety for workers close to the track, and to improve the efficiency of the work, without interfering with the passage of trains. However, a safety fence for railway tracks needs to be examined to see if it will interfere with the passage of trains. The purpose of this study is to analyze the safe distance between train and safety fence developed in Korea. In addition, the lateral load condition of wind pressure by trains is estimated and numerical analysis is carried out according to the installation intervals of railway safety fences. It has been confirmed that the proper spacing between the train and the railway safety fence should be at least 200 mm from the vehicle limit, and that the proper spacing of railway safety fence must be calculated in consideration of the wind pressure by trains.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.224-236
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• 2017

This study analyzed the characteristics of traffic accidents among elderly drivers according to area type in Gyeonggido(urban areas, urban-rural complex areas, and rural areas). Traffic accidents caused by unsafe driving are common in all three types of areas. In urban areas and urban-rural complex areas, traffic accidents were more frequent due to traffic violations and intersection accidents, while rural areas were more affected by central lines. Urban areas and urban-rural complex areas require simpler signal exposures, such as a simple straight line, left turn, or straight line and left turn signal rather than complex signal operations, such as overlaps in a signal operation. Improvement of non-signal intersections and unprotected traffic signal processing is also needed. In order to prevent the intrusion of the central line in rural areas, the center line guard rail should be prevented from penetrating the center line, and the influence of the vehicle headlamp should be reduced in the opposite direction. It is necessary to improve the visibility by using fluorescent letters to enlarge the font size of traffic signs and road signs, particularly to increase visibility at night and prevent traffic accidents at sunset. Minimal, simplified should be provided rather than complex phrases and information.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.1178-1185
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• 2010

Recently, high speed of container freight cars is causing fatigue damage of wheel. Sudden failure accidents cause a lot of physical and human damages. Therefore, damage analysis for wheel prevents failure accident of container freight car. Wheel receives mechanical and thermal loads at the same time while rolling stocks are run. The mechanical loads applied to wheel are classified by the horizontal load from contact of wheel and rail in curve line section and by the vertical force from rolling stocks weight. Also, braking and deceleration of rolling stocks cause repeated thermal load by wheel tread braking. Specially, braking of rolling stocks is frictional braking method that brake shoe is contacted in wheel tread by high breaking pressure. Frictional heat energy occurs on the contact surface between wheel tread and brake shoe. This braking converts kinetic energy of rolling stocks into heat energy by friction. This raises temperature rapidly and generates thermal loads in wheel and brake shoe. There mechanical and thermal loads generate crack and residual stress in wheel. Wetenkamp estimated temperature distribution of brake shoe experimentally. Donzella proposed fatigue life using thermal stress and residual stress. However, the load applied to wheel in aforementioned most researches considered thermal load and mechanical vertical load. Exact horizontal load is not considered as the load applied to wheel. Therefore, above-mentioned loading methods could not be applied to estimate actual stress applied to wheel. Therefore, this study proposed safety estimation on wheel of freight car using heat-structural coupled analysis on the basis of loading condition and stress intensity factor.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.532-542
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• 2018

Because maglev trains have a propulsion and absorption force without contact with the rails, they can drive safely at high-speed with little oscillation. Recently, test model of a maglev propulsion train was produced and operated, and has since been chosen as a national growth industry in South Korea; there have been many studies and considerable investment in these fields. This study examined the dynamic responses due to bridge-maglev train interaction and basic material to design bridges for maglev trains travelling at high-speed. Depending on the major factors affecting the dynamic effects, the scope of this study was restricted to the relationship between dynamic responses. A concrete box girder was chosen as a bridge model and injured train and rail types in domestic production were selected as the moving train load and guideway analysis model, respectively. From the analysis results, the natural frequency of a bridge for a maglev train, which has a deflection limit L/2000, was higher than those of bridges for general trains. The dynamic responses of the girder of the bridge for a maglev train showed a substantial increase in proportion to the velocities of the moving train like other general bridge cases. Maximum dynamic response of the girder is shown at a moving velocity of 240km/h and increased with increasing moving velocity of train. These results can be used to design a bridge for maglev propulsion trains and provide the basic data to confirm the validity and verification of the design code.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.235-245
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• 2008

Since rapidly increase of tunnel with increasing of expressway, the study on safety improvement of safety device at entrance of expressway tunnels is necessary. The existence of tunnel occurs more speed reduction than an upward slope by itself, the collision accident of tunnel entrance causes heavier damage than that of general accident on the road. So, many kinds of safety devices such as poly-ethylene barrier, guard-rail are placed on the road side. But these devices affect the drivers as an obstacle. Although there are various safety devices that are placed at tunnel entrance, this study is related to following 2-cases. One is that the poly-ethylene barrier is placed and the other is that a safety devices is not placed. The reason that these two cases are selected, is that poly-ethylene barrier is usually placed at many tunnel entrances and safety devices can affect the drivers as an obstacle. This study is related to the difference of right-hand side clearance between inside tunnel and outside tunnel, too. The average difference observed car speed and VDS(vehicle detect system) speed nearby the tunnel is analysed. Through the statistical analysis of the average difference, this study suggests an alternatives on safety improvement of safety devices at entrance of expressway tunnels. It is concluded that the small difference of right-hand side clearance is desirable to drivers when a poly-ethylene barrier is placed. And when the difference of right-hand side clearance is large, no safety devices is desirable, and when the difference of right-hand side clearance is small, poly-ethylene barrier should be placed to improve safety.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.549-562
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• 2017

The US railroad network carries 40% of the nation's total freight. Railroad bridges are the most critical part of the network infrastructure and, therefore, must be properly maintained for the operational safety. Railroad managers inspect bridges by measuring displacements under train crossing events to assess their structural condition and prioritize bridge management and safety decisions accordingly. The displacement of a railroad bridge under train crossings is one parameter of interest to railroad bridge owners, as it quantifies a bridge's ability to perform safely and addresses its serviceability. Railroad bridges with poor track conditions will have amplified displacements under heavy loads due to impacts between the wheels and rail joints. Under these circumstances, vehicle-track-bridge interactions could cause excessive bridge displacements, and hence, unsafe train crossings. If displacements during train crossings could be measured objectively, owners could repair or replace less safe bridges first. However, data on bridge displacements is difficult to collect in the field as a fixed point of reference is required for measurement. Accelerations can be used to estimate dynamic displacements, but to date, the pseudo-static displacements cannot be measured using reference-free sensors. This study proposes a method to estimate total transverse displacements of a railroad bridge under live train loads using acceleration and tilt data at the top of the exterior pile bent of a standard timber trestle, where train derailment due to excessive lateral movement is the main concern. Researchers used real bridge transverse displacement data under train traffic from varying bridge serviceability levels. This study explores the design of a new bridge deck-pier experimental model that simulates the vibrations of railroad bridges under traffic using a shake table for the input of train crossing data collected from the field into a laboratory model of a standard timber railroad pile bent. Reference-free sensors measured both the inclination angle and accelerations of the pile cap. Various readings are used to estimate the total displacements of the bridge using data filtering. The estimated displacements are then compared to the true responses of the model measured with displacement sensors. An average peak error of 10% and a root mean square error average of 5% resulted, concluding that this method can cost-effectively measure the total displacement of railroad bridges without a fixed reference.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.251-259
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• 2014

The transition zone between an earthwork and a bridge effect to the vehicle's running stability because support stiffness of the roadbed is suddenly changed. The design criteria for the transition structure on ballast track were not particular in the past. However with the introduction of concrete track is introduced, it requires there is a higher performance level required because of maintenance and running stability. In this present paper, a transition structure reinforced with geosynthetics is suggested to improve the performance of existing bridge-earthwork transition structures. The suggested transition structure, in which there is reinforcing of the approach block using high-tension geosynthetics, has a structure similar to that of earth reinforced abutments. The utilized backfill materials are cement treated soil and gravel. These materials are used to reduce water intrusion into the approach block and to increase the recycling of surplus earth materials. An experiment was performed under the same conditions in order to allow a comparison of this new structure with the existing transition structure. Evaluation items are elastic displacement, cumulative settlement, and earth pressure. As for the results of the real-scale accelerated testing, the suggested transition structure has excellent performance for the reduction of earth pressure and settlement. Above all, it has high resistance the variation of the water content.

• International Journal of Railway
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.149-156
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• 2008

During maintenance or construction works in or at the tracks of railways, high risks for passengers and railway staff, especially for the workers on the construction site exist. The high risks result out of the movement of rail vehicles, like trains or construction vehicles, which must be faced by using any available technical and operational technologies for securing them against the environment. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the level of protection continuously and to identify new and innovative methods and technologies for the protection of the gang (construction worker, machines and material). Especially on construction sites at line sections with two or more parallel tracks but also with single tracks, there are still a lot of incidents and accidents mostly with seriously injured persons or fatalities. These were mainly gang members that breach the railway-loading gage. By using proper warning or protection systems, the avoidance of such accidents must be achieved. The latest developments. in gang protection systems concern on the one hand fixed barriers in the middle between the construction site and the operated track and on the other hand construction vehicles equipped with automatic warning systems. The disadvantage of such protection methods is that the gang can be warned against an approaching train but a monitoring of the gang members cannot be performed. Only one part of a potential dangerous situation will be detected. If the gang members will overhear the acoustic warning signal of the security staff and the workers will not leave the danger zone in the track, the driver of the approaching train had no chance to react to the dangerous situation. An accident is often inevitable. While the detection of acoustic warning signals by the gang members working on a construction site is very difficult, the acoustical planning of an automatic warning system has to be designed for an acoustic short range level of one meter besides the construction vehicle. The decision about the use of today's technical warning system (fixed systems, automatic warning systems, etc.) must be geared to the technical feasibility and the level of safety which is needed. Criteria for decision guidance to block a track should be developed by danger estimation and economical variables. To realize the actual jurisdiction and to minimize the hazards of railway operations by the use of construction vehicles near the tracks further developments are needed. This means, that the warning systems have to be enhanced to systems for protection, which monitor the realization of the warning signal as a precondition for giving a movement authority to a train. This method can protect against accidents caused by predictable wrongdoing. The actual state of the art technique of using a collective warning combined with additional security staff is no longer acceptable. Therefore, the Institute of Transportation System of the German Aerospace Center in Braunschweig (Germany) will develop a gang warning and protection system based upon imaging methods, with optical sensors such as video in visible and invisible ranges, radar, laser, and other. The advantage of such a system based on the possibility to monitor both the gang itself and the railway-loading gauge either of the parallel track or of the same track still in use. By monitoring both situations, the system will be able to generate a warning message for the approaching train, that there are obstacles in the track, so that the train can be stopped to prevent an accident. And also the gang workers will be warned, while they breach their area.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.3610-3618
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• 2015

The congestion of railway vehicle and station shows up to 220%. Especially, transfer resistance of passenger increase rapidly by the collision of circulation. So increment of travel time, occurrence of safety accidents act as a factor that inhibits the utilization of urban railway station. In this paper, to improve traveling speed and comfort of urban rail passengers, urban transit passenger guidance system using congestion management model is proposed. The congestion management model that can mitigate a recurring/non-recurring congestion is constructed and the preliminary design of the system (middleware system, control system, guidance drive system) is carried out. Passenger Guidance System is configured by step for changing the external data into a form usable by the algorithm, step to perform the congestion management algorithm using the real-time data and historical data, step to control device based on the value that is calculated by congestion management algorithm, step to drive the device based on the information in the control system and circulation guidance devices. In the future, detail design will be performed based on the preliminary design. A prototype of the various devices according to the station structures and locations will be made. The control module of guidance device will be developed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.305-312
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• 2007

Among many types of light rail transits (LRT), the rubber-tired automated guide-way transit (AGT) is prevalent in many countries due to its advantages such as good acceleration/deceleration performance, high climb capacity, and reduction of noise and vibration. However, AGT is generally powered by high-voltage electric power feeding system and it may cause electromagnetic interference (EMI) to measurement sensors. The fiber optic sensor system is free from EMI and has been successfully applied in many applications of civil engineering. Especially, fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors are the most widely used because of their excellent multiplexing capabilities. This paper investigates a prestressed concrete girder bridge in the Korean AGT test track using FBG based sensors to monitor the dynamic response at various vehicle speeds. The serviceability requirements provided in the specification are also compared against the measured results. The results show that the measured data from FBG based sensors are free from EMI though electric sensors are not, especially in the case of electric strain gauge. It is expected that the FBG sensing system can be effectively applied to the LRT railway bridges that suffered from EMI.