Overview
Each year the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Railway Division holds a competition of technical presentations open to all young engineers, from apprentices to undergraduates and those just starting their career in the industry.
Regional heats have now taken place at all the Railway Division centres, and on Monday 20 May all the regional winners will go head to head in the final at IMechE HQ in London for the chance to win a cash prize. The winner will receive £1000, and two runners-up will also get £250 each.
Everyone is welcome to attend the final. This will be a fantastic opportunity to hear enthusiastic engineers speak about the projects, research and technical developments they have been working on.
A buffet will also be held after the presentations which everyone is welcome to attend.
Regional winners who will compete in the final include:
Scottish centre winner: Brian Sweeney, Asset Engineer (Electrification), Network Rail.
Paisley Canal ‘Low Cost’ Electrification
An overview of the innovative approach used to reduce the cost of the Paisley Canal Electrification scheme in Scotland from £28m to £10.6m.
North East centre winner: Jonathan Powell, PhD Student, Newcastle University
Leaves on the Line – Myths, Misconceptions and Mechanical Engineering
The overall theme of the presentation is adhesion between wheel and rail, and in searching for a title problems caused by leaves on the line immediately crops up as one of the most important consequences. Naturally it affects some railways more than others, but in Britain it is certainly one of the most visible problems for the travelling public, the media and the government. Accordingly, there are a lot of myths and misconceptions surround this issue, so the presentation briefly highlights some of the mechanical engineering science behind wheel-rail adhesion to hopefully clear some of these up. The work is based on research on adhesion undertaken as a part of my PhD project.
North West centre winner: Joshua Barrett, Graduate Engineer, ALSTOM
The ALSTOM Health Hub
The Health Hub is a method for and a system to accurately predict the remaining useful life of devices and device components based on a robust statistical analysis of measured data to reduce maintenance costs by adopting a condition-based maintenance philosophy. The maintenance tool comprises of ground based monitoring systems, a data processing system, prognosis algorithms and a visualisation and real time alerting service. By adopting a modular design Health Hub can easily be deployed into existing depot infrastructure with a high level of customisation.
This automated system gives increased inspection frequencies without the need for manual intervention and so Health Hub will allow optimisation of maintenance and resources, by moving to a more reactive maintenance regime. This will lead to an increase in fleet availability and reliability without compromising operational safety, thus leading to a better, safer and more reliable UK railway. The presentation will discuss the system, its anticipated benefits and the interfaces with key users.
South West centre winner: Thomas Mynors, Graduate Civil Engineer, Network Rail
Network Rail Western Route: Extreme Weather and Geo-Environmental Resilience
Following extreme weather in late 2012 and the widespread impacts across the Western Route, a workstream to identify the root causes of infrastructure failure and options for improving asset resilience was commissioned. This presentation will summarise the principal incidents I have investigated and the proposed resilience projects.
Midlands centre winner: James Leech, Graduate Engineer, Mott MacDonald
Wheelset Analysis
This presentation details the work undertaken in the analysis of wheelsets, specifically the study carried out in order to certify new wheelsets for the Orient Express. I will run through the Orient Express' initial problem in procuring new tyres and the subsequent design of a monobloc wheelset. I will go on to discuss the mechanical and thermal analysis of the wheels from the load cases and finite element modelling through to the results produced; a thermal performance comparison of monobloc and tyred wheels; the validation of these results; the calculations undertaken on the axle and consider further improvements in the process that could be developed.
South East centre winner: Chris Bryan, Assistant OLE Systems Engineer, Network Rail
Improving Asset Management within Overhead Line Electrification
The location of overhead line equipment relies on the approximate position measured along the track in imperial units. My mission was to map each structure using ordnance survey data, and generate analytical tools with the new information. In this presentation, I will demonstrate the challenges encountered in mapping this data and some of the benefits gained from this additional asset knowledge.
Special guest speaker: Geoff Dunmore, Network Resilience & Enforcement Manager, London Underground, Transport for London
Security on the Underground - It's a Piece of Cake!
Geoff Dunmore, who was the Network Security manager for London Underground for over ten years, will present how the Tube has become renown as one of the safest and most secure metros in the world, with low levels of crime and customer perception of safety and security at an all time high. Geoff will discuss the ‘ingredients’ required to ‘make’ a safe and secure passenger railway and how the ingredients work together to make the difference to the passenger’s perception and experience. He will explain how this has been achieved on the Tube despite the events of 7 July 2005 and with increasing numbers of passenger journeys of around 4million each day.
The Young Engineers Presentation Competition offers a unique opportunity for young railway engineers to:
- Get noticed by presenting their projects to peers, colleagues and senior managers in the industry.
- Gain experience in presenting technical presentations and refine their presentation and communication skills.
- Develop their career by enhancing their CV and developing competencies for CEng application.
- Compete for a cash prize both regionally and nationally.
Refreshments will be served from 17.15, and the presentations will start at 18.00