Doug Hargreaves

Biophilic urbanism: contributions to holistic urban greening for urban renewal

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider how biophilic urbanism complements and potentially enhances approaches for the built environment profession to holistically integrate nature into cities. Urban nature – also referred to as urban greening and green infrastructure – has increasingly been considered from many perspectives to address challenges such as population pressures, climate change and resource shortages. Within this context, the authors highlight how “biophilic urbanism” complements and may enhance approaches and efforts for urban greening. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a review of existing literature in “urban nature” to clarify and discuss the concept of biophilic urbanism. Drawing on this literature review, the authors present a systematic clustering and scaling of “biophilic elements” that could facilitate responding to twenty-first century challenges. Findings – Biophilic urbanism can be applied at multiple scales in urban environments, through a range of multi...

A suitable method for journal bearing wear measurement

Purpose – Ideally, there is no wear in hydrodynamic lubrication regime. A small amount of wear occurs during start and stop of the machines and the amount of wear is so small that it is difficult to measure with accuracy. Various wear measuring techniques have been used where out-of-roundness was found to be the most reliable method of measuring small wear quantities in journal bearings. This technique was further developed to achieve higher accuracy in measuring small wear quantities. The method proved to be reliable as well as inexpensive. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In an experimental study, the effect of antiwear additives was studied on journal bearings lubricated with oil containing solid contaminants. The test duration was too long and the wear quantities achieved were too small. To minimise the test duration, short tests of about 90 min duration were conducted and wear was measured recording changes in variety of parameters related to weight, geometry and ...

Development of Wear-Fatigue-Lubrication-Interaction Model for Cost Effective Rail Maintenance Decisions

Prediction of operational risk and enhancement of reliability and safety for rail network are important to rail infrastructure providers and train operators. Rail defects leading to rail breaks and derailments cost huge amount due to cancelled / delayed traffic, emergency maintenance, loss of assets, loss of revenues and liability compensations due to down times. Wear occurring at the wheel/rail interface as a result of ineffective lubrication costs huge amount to rail infrastructure providers per year. Cost of rail-wheel maintenance and replacements are reduced significantly with effective lubrication. Studies on interaction of factors behind wear, fatigue, lubrication and grinding problems are required to monitor those factors and finding out cost effective technological solutions in predicting and reducing operational risks. This paper focuses on development of wear-fatigue-lubrication-interaction model for cost effective rail maintenance decisions.

Techniques in Developing Economic Decision Model Combining Above Rail and Below Rail Assets

Many of the rail infrastructure owners take ad-hoc decisions in inspection, lubrication and grinding strategies for controlling rolling contact fatigue (RCF) and wear. Limited research has been conducted in this area for economic effectiveness combining above rail and below rail assets. There is need to focus on damage of rail caused due to wheel and damage of wheel caused due to rail and total cost of rail and wheel for optimal replacements, maintenance and penalty costs to rail or train owners. This paper focuses on techniques in developing integrated economic decision model combining above rail and below rail assets for operational and maintenance strategies. These techniques able to analyse the effectiveness of operational and maintenance related decisions combining rail and wheel considering various scenarios.