Triennial Report 2003 - CHARMEC

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYcharmec has established itself as an internationally recognizedmultidisciplinary Centre of Excellence in railwaymechanics with a critical mass of senior research competence.Based on good project management and engineeringexpertise, excellent results are achieved on vital projectswithin the railway industry. charmec has been recognizedby its industry partners for its international contactnetwork by which they obtain access to the globalrailway business. – Excellent scientific achievement is evidentwithin the six Programme Areas of charmec, whichhave received attention during Stage 3. These are twoquotations from the conclusions drawn by vinnova’sinternational evaluators in March 2003*.The Competence Centre CHAlmers Railway MEChanicswas established in July 1995 at Chalmers University ofTechnology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Its annual budgetduring the three years of Stage 3 has been msek 23.27 Departments in 3 Schools have been involved. Theyhave published 90 scientific reports in international journalsand conference proceedings during Stage 3. Thenumber of licentiate’s and doctor’s degrees conferredduring Stage 3 have been 6 and 6 respectively. A total of21 licentiate’s degrees and 13 doctor’s degrees in railwaymechanics have to date (December 2003) been awardedat Chalmers. More than 200 scientific reports in railwaymechanics have been internationally published. Thenumber of partners in our three new European projectsduring Stage 3 has been 23 (industries, universities, institutes,administrations, consultancies) from 8 countries.charmec strives at combining academic excellenceand industrial relevance, generating first rate researchand able PhDs. Our work includes mathematical modelling,numerical studies, laboratory experiments and fullscalein-field measurements. Co-operation with theInternational evaluators (from left) Cesar Dopazo, Robert DFröhling, Dudley Roach, John S Baras and Per Stenius atChalmers in March 2003Roger Lundén at his opening of the presentation of CHARMECbefore the international evaluators in March 2003(about 2.5 million euro). Each of three parties has contributedabout one third to the financing: the University,the government research agency vinnova, and an IndustrialInterests Group comprising 9 partners. In total,33 research projects and 7 development projects havebeen run during Stage 3 within the six programme areas,see the foldout on pages 3-4 and also page 10 of thepresent report,Interaction of Train and TrackVibrations and NoiseMaterials and MaintenanceSystems for Monitoring and OperationParallel eu ProjectsParallel Special ProjectsAt Chalmers, 47 people (project leaders, academic supervisors,doctoral candidates and senior researchers) fromIndustrial Interests Group has been close. Transfer ofknowledge in both directions has taken place throughadvisory groups and industrial site visits, at regularseminars and brainstorming meetings in addition toco-authored journal papers, co-ordinated conferenceparticipation and joint in-field experimental campaigns.The inertia dynamometer for braking experiments andthe railway noise rig for acoustic measurements on theLucchini Sweden plant site in Surahammar have beenfurther developed. These activities continue into Stage 4.* The evaluators were the generalists Professor John S Baras(University of Maryland, usa), Professor Cesar Dopazo(siemat Research Centre, Madrid, Spain) and Professor PerStenius (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland), and thespecialists Dr Robert D Fröhling (Spoornet Engineering, rsa)and Professor Dudley Roach (Central Queeensland University,Australia); see vinnova’s Information Report vi 2003:4.6