SMaRT (Sand Mitigation around Railway Tracks) is a four-year project coordinated by Politecnico di Torino and supported by the EC through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action. It has provided an innovative, multidisciplinary and inter-sectorial doctoral training in prestigious academic institutions (Politecnico di Torino – IT, and University of Oxford – UK) as well as a highly skilled Consulting Company (Optiflow Company – FR), and supported by a panel of global players in the railway industry as Partner Organizations, ranging from civil works (Astaldi), to railway equipment (Salcef), to signalling systems (Hitachi Rail STS). SMaRT has promoted international excellence in sand mitigation science and technology, in modelling, design, assessment and commercialization of innovative and efficient Sand Mitigation Measures (SMMs).
In the last decade, a growing number of railways have been designed or built in arid regions worldwide mainly to transport pilgrims and freight. Transnational railway networks are even more ambitious, intended to promote the social and geopolitical growth of large Regions. For instance, the Arab Network Railway is a 30,000 km long high-speed/capacity railway network currently under design connecting all the Arab League Countries. The length of such a single project is more than twice the overall European high-speed railway network. The corresponding investments are significant: Middle East Countries allocated USD 259 billion to build 40,000 km of railway tracks up to 2030.
In arid environments, windblown sand can have relevant negative impacts on railways in terms of safety and serviceability issues related to migrating dunes, windblown loose sand accumulating on the railway, and derailment of running trains. Windblown sand reduces railway serviceability and increases maintenance costs because of ballast contamination, rail grinding, or burial of signal controls.
Effective, durable, robust and sustainable solutions are mandatory to protect railways against windblown sand. The design and verification of SMMs are at their infancy worldwide and they currently remain in the realm of empiric, qualitative practice. Such an approach obviously conflicts with modern engineering practice, based on the quantification of the design solutions by means of predictive models. SMMs suffer from the scarce transfer of knowledge from research fields to Civil Engineering design practice and construction industry.
The European industry has a strong know-how thanks to its experience in the construction of the European high-speed railway network. Nevertheless, the transfer of such competences to constructions in arid environments requires specialized knowledge in the design and analysis of SMMs.
SMaRT has tackled these problems, and grasped the opportunity to:
• Innovate the sand mitigation research field, by advancing competences in the main scientific fields involved (wind engineering, fluid and porous mechanics, aeolian geomorphology), and their convergence in a multidisciplinary approach for design and analysis;
• Innovate the training of the three ESRs enrolled during the project by means of:
- a multidisciplinary doctoral training programme incorporating the development of both design capabilities and analysis skills;
- an academy-industry intersectoral doctoral framework integrating the innovation ability of the former and the stimuli stemming from the industrial and commercial needs of the latter;
- a proper “in vitro” replica of the ESRs’ future real-world working context, by a consortium layout that reflects the production chain of the construction industry;
• Enrich and complement the competences of the European railway industry, in order to address an exciting and growing market sector.
In the light of the above, SMaRT has accomplished its mission during its course.
