The objective of the RAIL (Robotic Aid to Independent Living) project is to develop a viable, low cost robotic aid, based upon the Handy 1 rehabilitation robot (fig. 1). The RAIL system will enable people with severe disabilities to gain independence in important daily living activities such as teeth cleaning, shaving and washing. Also attachments will be designed to allow the RAIL robot to ful...

A vehicle body, two bogie frames and two wheelsets for each bogie frame are used to describe the railway vehicle model. The system dynamic is modeled using a 38-DOF system including the longitudinal, lateral, vertical, roll, pitch and yaw displacements. A heuristic nonlinear creep model and the elastic rail are used to simulate the wheel-rail contact. Stable movement and the corresponding limit...

This article considers all 87 attacks worldwide against air and rail transport systems that killed at least two passengers over the 30-year period of 1982-2011. The data offer strong and statistically significant evidence that successful acts of terror have "gone to ground" in recent years: attacks against aviation were concentrated early in the three decades studied whereas those against rail ...

Urban rail is widely considered to be a form of low-carbon green transportation, but there is a lack of specific quantitative research to support this. By comparing the mode, distance, and corresponding energy consumption of residents before and after the opening of rail transit, this paper establishes a carbon reduction method for rail transit. A measurement model takes the passenger carbon em...

In order to extend the rail life and improve the firing accuracy, the electromagnetic launcher’s rail can be modeled as a beam on elastic foundation with simply supported beam by moving load. Euler beam theory is applied to build the Mechanical model and the analytical solution of the equation subjected to cosine magnetic pressure is derived in detail, which has successfully avoided the errors ...

We built three simulation models that can assist rail transit planners and operators to evaluate high and low probability rail-centered hazard events that could lead to serious consequences for rail-centered networks and their surrounding regions. Our key objective is to provide these models to users who, through planning with these models, can prevent events or more effectively react to them. ...

This paper advances the field of network interdiction analysis by introducing an application to the urban rail transit network, deploying protective resources against intentional attacks. The resource allocation problem for urban rail transit systems is considered as a game between two players, the attacker interdicting certain rail stations to generate greatest disruption impact and the system...

Rail shipments of hazardous materials expose the population near the routes to the possibility of an accident resulting in a spill. Rail routes are determined by economic concerns such as route length and the revenue generated for the originating carrier. In this paper we consider an alternate routing strategy that takes accident risks into account. We employ a model to quantify rail transport ...

In comparison with the other transportation modes, rail rapid transit already enjoys a higher degree of safety as it is designed with the exclusive right of way and the automatic train control and monitoring systems. Nevertheless, rail rapid transit systems are not free from serious accidents, which often led to human injuries and facility damages. The planning of accident prevention and emerge...

Magnetic levitation is a popular topic of research over the years throughout the world due to its wide range of industrial applications. In any DC attraction type suspension system, actuator and guide-way (rail) plays most important role. In this manuscript FEM based analysis of different structures of actuator and rail (guide-way) has been carried out utilizing ANSYS software. Input power to l...