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Infrastructures, Volume 2, Issue 1 (March 2017) – 4 articles

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Comment
Comment on: Toughness of Railroad Concrete Crossties with Holes and Web Openings. Infrastructures 2017, 2, 3
by Konstantinos Giannakos
Infrastructures 2017, 2(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures2010004 - 21 Feb 2017
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6072
Abstract
The present brief comment is regarding the technical note “Toughness of railroad concrete crossties with holes and web opening”, by Erosha K. Gamage, Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Alex M. Remennikov, and Tetsuya Ishida [1].[...] Full article
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5051 KiB  
Technical Note
Toughness of Railroad Concrete Crossties with Holes and Web Openings
by Erosha K. Gamage, Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Alex M. Remennikov and Tetsuya Ishida
Infrastructures 2017, 2(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures2010003 - 11 Jan 2017
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 7970
Abstract
Prestressed concrete sleepers (or railroad ties) are principally designed in order to carry wheel loads from the rails to the ground of railway tracks, as well as to secure rail gauge for safe train travels. Their design takes into account static and dynamic [...] Read more.
Prestressed concrete sleepers (or railroad ties) are principally designed in order to carry wheel loads from the rails to the ground of railway tracks, as well as to secure rail gauge for safe train travels. Their design takes into account static and dynamic loading conditions. In spite of prestressed concrete crossties being most commonly used in railway tracks, there have always been many demands from rail engineers to improve the serviceability and functionality of concrete crossties. For example, signaling, fiber optic, equipment cables are often damaged either by ballast corners or by the tamping machine. There has been a need to re-design concrete crossties to incorporate cables internally so that they would not experience detrimental or harsh environments. Also, many concrete crossties need a retrofit for an automatic train control device and similar signaling equipment. In contrast, the effects of holes and web openings on the structural capacity of concrete crossties have not been thoroughly investigated. This paper accordingly highlights the experimental investigations into the effect of holes and web openings on the toughness and ductility of concrete crossties. The key outcome of this research is to enable a better decision making process for retrofitting prestressed concrete crossties with holes and web openings in practice. Full article
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1670 KiB  
Article
Quantifying the Financial Impact of Climate Change on Australian Local Government Roads
by Jacqueline Balston, Steven Li, Ivan Iankov, Jon Kellett and Geoff Wells
Infrastructures 2017, 2(1), 2; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures2010002 - 11 Jan 2017
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 7679
Abstract
Australia’s 560 Councils are responsible for assets worth approximately $270 billion, many of which have a life span >50 years and so will be affected by climate change. Maintenance and replacement of Council infrastructure is guided by principles, models and tools in the [...] Read more.
Australia’s 560 Councils are responsible for assets worth approximately $270 billion, many of which have a life span >50 years and so will be affected by climate change. Maintenance and replacement of Council infrastructure is guided by principles, models and tools in the International Infrastructure Management Manual that currently do not allow for climate change impacts or the likely flow-on effects to asset and financial management. This paper describes a financial simulation model developed to calculate the financial impacts of climate change on three major asset classes of importance to Australian Councils: hotmix sealed, spray sealed and unsealed roads. The research goes beyond previous studies of climate change impacts on roads in that it provides a location specific toolkit that is designed to assist councils in their asset management and planned maintenance programmes. Two categories of inputs are required for the model: climate inputs, relating specifically to baseline temperature and rainfall distributions and climate change parameters for temperature and rainfall; and engineering inputs, relating specifically to the three road types and the key parameters of their performance and useful lives over the scenario period. The baseline distributions are then shifted mathematically within the model by the mean change as projected by a selected Global Climate Model (GCM) scenario. Outputs of the model are the historical baseline climate variable distributions and the climate change (CC) impacts on road performance are in the form of changes to the useful life of the asset and associated changes in asset resurfacing and rehabilitation costs. Ten case study local councils in southern Australia are examined. Using IPCC AR4 scenarios, the results suggest that the incremental impact of climate change on all three types of road infrastructure modelled will be generally low. There are small cost reductions over the period for all road types as a result of the expected drying and warming trends in the climate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Change Effects on Infrastructure)
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4701 KiB  
Technical Note
Comparative Analysis of Triangulation Libraries for Modeling Large Point Clouds from Land and Their Infrastructures
by Luis Lopez-Fernandez, Pablo Rodriguez-Gonzalvez, David Hernandez-Lopez, Damian Ortega-Terol and Diego Gonzalez-Aguilera
Infrastructures 2017, 2(1), 1; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures2010001 - 03 Jan 2017
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 7728
Abstract
Although the generation of large points clouds from geomatic techniques allows us to realize the topography and appearance of the terrain and its infrastructures (e.g., roads, bridges, buildings, etc.), all these 3D point clouds require an unavoidable step to be conveniently treated: the [...] Read more.
Although the generation of large points clouds from geomatic techniques allows us to realize the topography and appearance of the terrain and its infrastructures (e.g., roads, bridges, buildings, etc.), all these 3D point clouds require an unavoidable step to be conveniently treated: the definition of the surface that connects these points in space through digital surface models (DSM). In addition, these point clouds sometimes have associated attributes and geometric constraints such as breaklines and/or exclusion areas, which require the implementation of efficient triangulation techniques that can cope with a high volume of information. This article aims to make a comparative analysis of different Delaunay triangulation libraries, open or with academic versions available for the scientific community, so that we can assess their suitability for the modeling of the territory and its infrastructures. The comparison was carried out from a two-fold perspective: (i) to analyze and compare the computational cost of the triangulation; (ii) to assess the geometric quality of the resulting meshes. The different techniques and libraries have been tested based on three different study cases and the corresponding large points clouds generated. The study has been useful to identify the limitations of the existing large point clouds triangulation libraries and to propose statistical variables that assess the geometric quality of the resulting DSM. Full article
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