Introduction

Brakes in railway trains have a variety of forms such as air brake, eddy current brake and aerodynamic brake. Brakes are indispensable and safety-critical systems for all types of railway trains including passenger (high-speed, metro, tram, etc.) and freight trains (heavy-haul, intermodal, etc.). Safe and efficient railway operations require a good understanding of brakes from various parties including drivers, maintenance crews, manufacturers, and design engineers. Research helps to expand and deepen the knowledge about railway train brakes. Brake modelling and simulation date back to the pre-digital age. However, it remains a challenging topic to today due to various reasons including their nonlinear dynamic nature, complex devices, and the limits regarding parameter determination.

Brake models have mainly been used for train dynamics simulations and brake performance predictions. Brake monitoring is also a developing topic and has been a part of train health monitoring systems. The emerging smart autonomous railway systems have now increased the requirements for these topics. For example, autonomous trains, Communication Based Train Control, and railway train Virtual Coupling require even higher accuracy in predictions and monitoring of air brake systems. In the meantime, innovative brake designs are continually pursued.

Therefore, the editors want to use this special issue as a forum to explore new knowledge and innovations in brake design, experimentation, modelling, simulation, monitoring, etc.

Special issue scope

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

·        Passenger and freight train brake systems

·        Innovative brake system designs

·        Experimental study and field testing of train brake systems

·        Fluid dynamics in brake systems

·        Real-time brake models including empirical models

·        Numerical methods for brake modelling

·        Parameterisation of brake systems

·        Friction and adhesion in brake systems

·        Condition monitoring for brake systems

·        Stochastic features in brake systems

·        Adaptive brake modelling for automated train driving

The journal

The Railway Engineering Science is a peer-reviewed Open Access journal published by Springer and indexed by Scopus, Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and many other major databases.

The publication costs for Railway Engineering Science are fully covered by Southwest Jiaotong University so authors do not need to pay any article-processing charges.

Manuscript preparation

Manuscript preparation must strictly follow the journal instructions. Submissions must use the journal online submission system.  

Important dates

Submission opens: 01-03-2022

Submission closes: 01-09-2022

Planned publication: first half of 2023

Guest editors

Qing Wu ([email protected]), Central Queensland University, Australia.

Wei Wei [email protected], Dalian Jiaotong University, China.

Luca Pugi ([email protected]) University of Florence, Italy.

Luciano Cantone ([email protected]) University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy.