How do you make rail infrastructure more resilient to weather changes, extreme natural events and even terrorist attacks? This was one of the main questions of the RISEN project, thanks to which researchers from the Tribology Group at the Institute of Machine and Industrial Design of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FME) at BUT were able to travel to Japan and China and exchange the latest knowledge and experience in this area with both private institutions and other universities. Although the project was interrupted by the pandemic, it was possible to take advantage of the established cooperation and turn it into further joint research projects.
"Our project is being carried out under the MSCA-RISE scheme, a network of collabo- rating institutions between which research and develop- ment staff exchange visits take place. It takes two forms. Either it is an inter-sectoral exchange, that is, between a university and a private com- pany, or it is an international exchange. This means within academia, but usually outside the continent. In our case, it is exchange with universities outside the European Union, specifically in Asia," says Milan Omasta, who coordi- nated the project for FME.
Although the project is quite broad and is more about knowledge exchange and new experiences for employees than a specific research task or product development, it has a central theme, according to Omasta. In this case, it is research and development in the field of rail infrastructure to make it more resilient to change. "These include climate change as well as various natural disasters and extreme human interventions such as terrorist attacks," adds Milan Omasta. The second research topic is advanced monitoring meth- ods. "Advanced methods for monitoring the condition and various variables related to rolling stock and infrastruc- ture. This involves the imple- mentation of various sensors and evaluation methods," explains Omasta. The outputs of the joint research and development activities are mainly impacted articles and two technical books.
The project involved depart- ments from both mechani- cal and civil engineering. In addition to BUT and other European universities, there are also MIT and Berkeley University in California as partners, prestigious private research institutes and in- dustrial partners from all over the world. "We specifically targeted two sites, namely the Transport Engineering University in Chengdu, China, and RTRI in Japan. Japan's Railway Technical Research Institute is a research institu- tion dedicated specifically to railways. As it is a private institute, it is very difficult to get in, unlike academia. And we were one of the few who managed to do so within the project," points out Milan Omasta. According to him, the greatest role was played by the close proximity of the topics and publications. "It was crucial that we were able to get directly involved in their research activities and also be an asset. Moreover, this is experimental research, which is what we are primarily involved in," explains Omasta, adding that the main credit for the very successful work in Japan goes to colleagues Radovan Galas and Daniel Kvarda.
Czech experts from BUT spent six months in Japan and nine months in China. However, the project was then interrupted by the global pandemic and further work in Asia is now uncertain. But if all goes well, the project should restart in autumn 2021, so that the remaining exchanges can be completed. At the same time, however, it has already been possible to build on the programme. "We are now working most closely with the Tribology Research Institute at Chengdu University, where we have already submitted and received two projects that we are now working on," confirms Omasta. The internships with the Japanese RTRI should continue again, this time beyond the RISEN project.
The article was published in the magazine News at BUT 2021/2022.