Germany - Research and development services and related consulting

Description

Railroad infrastructure facilities are characterized by a very long service life. If used in accordance with the design and with appropriate maintenance, the facilities can generally be used for many decades. However, various parameters relevant to use change compared with the design and construction standards at the time of construction. The positively assessed increase in rail traffic and the changed environmental conditions must also be taken into account by an infrastructure that can withstand loads and stresses. The increase in rail traffic and the influence of the changing climate play central roles in achieving the dimensioned service life of structures and avoiding wear.Continuous recording, transfer and processing of extensive data sets was not technically possible until a few years ago and is currently not available across the board in the area of application of railroad bridges.This project is intended to collect measurement data on three relevant railroad bridges. Of importance here are structures with frequently occurring construction methods. These data form a basis for investigations on the long-term load-bearing behavior as well as on operational and environmental influences on engineering structures. The data thus serve to ensure the service life predicted at the time of construction and the sustainable use of engineering structures beyond a dimensioned service life, for example through further development for digitalized condition monitoring.Due to the large number of railroad bridges in operation, ensuring and increasing the service life of bridges makes an important contribution to climate change adaptation and climate protection. The structural data will also provide insights into the dynamic interaction between vehicles and infrastructure as well as into the time-dependent load-bearing and fatigue behavior.This will allow both new design methods for bridges to be developed and existing methods to be validated.In the project, several measuring points will be used to create a long-term database of railroad bridges, taking into account traffic use and environmental influences. The creation of this comprehensive data basis is novel. The measuring points are to be equipped with extensive sensor technology and can be used almost synchronously locally independently of the measuring stations by means of remote data transmission. In addition to data collection at the measuring points, data transmission, processing and automated evaluation form further focal points. All measuring stations should be located in the area of the Open Digital Test Field of the DZSF, between Halle (Saale), Cottbus and Niesky or in their immediate vicinity.
Please refer to the published documents for details of the tender, in particular the DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES and the BIDDER INFORMATION.

Opportunity closing date

27 September 2023

Value of contract

£1m-5m