Overview

Australia’s Railway Industry is reinventing itself to become the major mode of land transport in the 21st century, with the main challenge of creating a competitive edge through imaginative ideas, innovative research leadership and cutting-edge technology. In addition, the vast majority of the population lives on the coast where the soft and compressible marine soft clays in Australia present significant construction challenges with regard to the design and performance of major infrastructure, such as the stability of transportation systems.

Given the design and maintenance challenges associated with rail tracks used by heavy freight and high speed passenger trains along terrains characterized by adverse ground conditions (often encountering very soft clays and slope failures), Geotechnics and Railway Engineering Research Group at University of Wollongong has been built around several interdisciplinary research phases (e.g. geotechnical, geological, mechanical and structural) interacting between ground conditions, wheel loading and rail track performance.

The existing and proven research excellence through an active group of currently 20 full-time Research Students and 6 postdoctoral research fellows working under 12 academics places UoW’s geotechnics and railway engineering research at the top of the region in a number of key areas including: the dynamic modeling and prediction of track performance in poor soils, automated monitoring of track defects, assessment of wheel-rail-ballast degradation, effect of slope movements on rail tracks, landslides hazards and risk management, improvement of soft coastal clay foundations, remediation of acid sulphate soils to prevent corrosion of track components, decision support systems applied to track maintenance scheduling, stability assessment of rail corridors and embankments, use of synthetic materials for improving sub-surface drainage and reducing track deflection, and the role of filtration in eroded soil retention

Researchers at University of Wollongong under the auspices of the CRC for Railway Engineering and Technologies and in collaboration with other rail organisations (RIC and Queensland Rail, ARTC and TMG), has established an expert research group in this area. The extensive research collaborations with various Industry bodies, such as Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation, Department of Main Roads (Brisbane), and Polyfabrics (Australia) have also resulted in modern ground improvement techniques.

National and International recognition gained through various awards such as Swedish Geotechnical Society Award for Ground Improvement (1998), plus numerous Keynote addresses in reputed Conferences have brought immense prestige to the leading-edge research undertaken in geotechnical and railway engineering.