Railway Geotechnics Lab

The Railway Geotechnics Lab. is a state-of-the-art experimental laboratory converging cutting-edge research in the frontier areas of design, construction and operation of high-speed railway tracks. The key focus of our research is towards improvements in the efficiency, economy, effectiveness, and sustainability of modern railway transport.

Thrust areas and innovation spheres of frontline research in the Railway Geotechnics Lab include:

• 3-Dimensional computational modelling and analysis of transportation-geotechnics problems. 

• Experimental and numerical investigations on train-track interactions and concomitant rail track geo-dynamics.

• Laboratory simulation of railcar dynamics using tactile vibration sensor systems.

• Cognitive studies on passenger ride comfort using an advanced virtual reality (VR) platform. 

• Assessment and rectification of diverse challenges pertinent to the design and construction of ballasted and slab track systems. 

• Estimation of fault development in railway tracks in line with long-term railway operations.

• Characterization and mitigation of ground-borne railway vibrations for environmental sustainability of railway tracks.

• Improvement of long-term performance of railway substructures through innovative reinforcement and retrofitting techniques.

• Safety and stabilisation of railway track overlying challenging soil terrains.

State-of-the-art facilities 

Our lab takes pride in developing a first-of-its-kind 4-Dimensional High-Speed Train Simulator facility built for super-realistic lab-scale simulation of high-speed train operations. The core research vertical of this virtual reality (VR) platform is to investigate passenger railcar vibrations by virtually simulating the biomechanical sensory experience of passengers travelling in a high-speed train using a VR motion chair (with tactile vibration feedback) and an immersive 360° ocular environment rendered through a head-mounted VR headset (looking through the eyes of the train passenger). Qualitative assessment of passenger ride comfort indices is done through cognitive studies on real human subjects (train passengers) by simulating real railcar dynamics using a multi-channel shaker mechanism of high precision.

High-Speed Train Simulator 

• 6-DoF Inside/Out head and hand tracking

• IPD positions - 58mm, 63mm, and 68mm

• Quad camera setup with 2x pass-through

• IR LED-based controllers with capacitive sensors

• Built-in gyroscope and accelerometer sensors

• Stationary / Room-scale mappable

• 3-D positional auditory profiling

• 6-channel programmable seat vibration transducers

• 6x 120w 4-ohms haptics vibration amplifier

The Railway Geotechnics Lab. also houses state-of-the-art computational facilities for 3-Dimensional numerical modelling and analysis of various geotechnical engineering problems using commercial finite element packages ABAQUS and PLAXIS facilitated by IIT Hyderabad. The lab also specialises and takes a keen interest in the mathematical modelling and simulation of challenging transportation-geotechnics problems.

Mitigation of Railway Vibrations

FEM Modelling and Analysis