A Risk-Informed Decision-Making Framework for Coastal Railroad System Subjected to Storm Hazards

Details

• Creators:
  Sohrabi, Soheil ; Tajik, Amir ; Darestani, Yousef ; Pringle, William ; Lautala, Pasi ; Xue, Pengfei
• Corporate Creators:
  Michigan Technological University
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration. Office of Research, Development and Technology
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Coasts
  • Railroad tracks
  • Bridge waterways
  • Embankments
  • Floods
  • Storms
• Publication/ Report Number:
  DOT/FRA/ORD-26/29
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Edition:
  05/01/2022 - 08/01/2025
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration
• Description:
  Researchers from Michigan Technological University, in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory, conducted this study from May 2022 to July 2025. They aimed to identify and mitigate risks of current and future tropical storms impacting the railroad infrastructure along the Gulf of America. The study focused on two critical track segments owned and operated by CSX Transportation and CN railway in the Northern Gulf of America (NGOA).
  
  The research team developed a comprehensive, risk-based framework to estimate the impact of storm-induced surge and wave hazards on coastal railroads along the NGOA coastline. The research team integrated a physics-based high-fidelity hydrodynamic model to simulate the storm surge and wave generated by tropical storms. The simulations projected future storms and data adjustments for the year 2050. The research team integrated the probabilistic hazard model with a statistical model that assessed the failure probability of railroad components to determine the probability of failure of tracks and bridges due to ballast and embankment scour and the uplift of ballasted bridge decks. The failure probabilities were used within a statistical analysis to determine expected life of tracks and bridges and to devise mitigation strategies that can increase the expected life of coastal tracks and bridges.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  693JJ622C000006
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/93752/dot_93752_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 3.73 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Federal Railroad Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:58c7dc83c3d2c40b4588fac3e2b644f0eeeb6c71851c202abaf7b3b578c97f25463b28fab4f5390e81a4d5eaf28cf873429f817bac513b3bf8e6be41fe57a368