Award honour for vital rail track research

The University of Wollongong and RailCorp have been honoured with a major award for their joint urgent research to improve track strength and stability to cater for heavier, faster trains.

At a ceremony attended by Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the Arts Centre in Melbourne, Professor Buddhima Indraratna received the Business-Higher Education Round Table’s (B-HERT) most coveted, “2009 Award for Best Research & Development Collaboration” for outstanding achievement.

This award is in recognition of the significant contributions made by the UOW-Railcorp (NSW) partnership of Professor Indraratna (Professor of Civil Engineering) and David Christie (Senior Geotechnical Consultant, RailCorp, NSW).

Professor Indraratna from UOW’s Faculty of Engineering is also its Director of the Centre for Geotechnical and Railway Engineering, and the Wollongong Co-ordinator for the Co-operative Research Centre for Rail Innovation.

He is regarded by his peers as being the leader of a group of researchers who are at the forefront of rail research in the world. Since the mid 1990s after starting rail track research for the first time in an Australian university, almost every PhD student in the rail track area in Australia has been a student of Professor Indraratna.

Professor Indraratna paid special tribute to his past and present PhD students and his dedicated research staff who have worked with him for about 15 years in rail track research that has brought recognition to the University of Wollongong as one of the most prominent rail track research centres in the world.

“They too must share in this award as does the UOW administration that has continued to support this research since I first arrived here in 1991,” he said.

Professor Indraratna and his co-researchers along with RailCorp have been involved in the design and construction of modern rail tracks using high strength plastic grids and synthetic drain systems and for introducing new ballast standards for rail tracks in Australia to cater for faster and heavier trains.

Transporting increased amounts of freight, coal and ore on rail at higher speeds demand a strong and reliable track structure. Rock of high quality for rail ballast is a diminishing resource and extensive quarrying degrades the environment.

“Achievements have been the redesign of the ballast grading to enhance its strength and stability, the introduction of geogrids to improve performance of recycled ballast and the use of prefabricated subsurface drains to improve the performance of soft soil under the repeated loading from heavy trains,” Professor Indraratna said.

Earlier this year, the NSW Premier Nathan Rees and Transport minister David Campbell announced $10 million in funding from RailCorp to establish the SMART Rail institute at UOW.

The Rail Institute will play a critical part in the overall development of the University of Wollongong’s SMART (Simulation, Modelling and Analysis for Research and Teaching) Infrastructure Facility now under construction at the University.

B-HERT Awards were established in 1998 to recognise outstanding achievements in collaboration between business and higher education in the fields of research and development and education and training. The objective of the program is to highlight at a national level the benefits of such collaboration and enhance links between industry and universities. B-HERT awards are primarily sponsored by the Federal Government’s Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

Last reviewed: 9 November, 2009