Rail

With the increasing growth of rail freight and passenger services throughout Australia, rail safety is of paramount importance to government regulators (ATSB, ONRSR, RISSB) and private owners/operators. Safety of railroad infrastructure including tracks, bridges, passenger rail vehicles and freight rolling stock is ensured through detailed engineering analyses, testing and maintenance.

Engagement of an independent expert for engineering and testing services provides peace of mind, ensuring the safety of your passengers and reliability of your assets. HRL has been a service provider to Australia’s rail infrastructure for over 30 years. We have ridden your trains and trams all over Australia performing ride testing to track testing to laboratory fatigue testing and material examinations.

HRL provides the following independent services to the rail industry:

Experimental Stress Analysis (Strain Gauge surveys) of rail vehicles
Theoretical Stress Analysis (Finite Element Analysis) of rail vehicles and components
Compliance Testing to Rail Standards (Ride index testing and vibration measurements)
Fatigue Life Assessment of rail vehicles and components (Experimental or Theoretical)
Inspection Services - NDT and visual inspection
Defect Tolerance Assessment (Assessment of defects when found during inspections)
Fitness for service assessment (Assessment of defects when found during inspections)
Pressure Vessel Design Verification (inspection and assessment of rail pressure equipment)
Failure Analysis (material investigation services, PMI, UTT, failure examinations).

HRL assists the rail industry to face its many challenges including:

Safety requirements and demonstration thereof
Regulatory requirements
Government requirements
Aging assets
Unproven designs
Breakdown maintenance (unscheduled maintenance requirements affecting supply)
Penalties arising from not meeting supply demand
Time restrictions due to unscheduled servicing requirements.

Solutions HRL provides include:

Train testing to verify design complies with safety requirements
Train and track testing to verify condition complies with regulatory requirements
Train and track testing to verify design and condition complies with government requirements
Testing using Strain Gauges to prove FEA Analysis
Stress testing to determine stresses to verify compliance with design limits through physical testing
Vibration/Ontrack Testing
Stresses used to determine Asset Life (Fatigue Life Assessment)
Testing to provide data knowledge to the asset owner to facilitate, run, replace, repair decisions
Engineering assessments to code requirements for trail and rail equipment
Inspection to identify presence of defects or cracking
Failure analysis to determine cause of failures