Day 10: June 14, 2013

Following Xiang's advice, the first document that I started looking at this morning was Athaphon kawprasert's dissertation (2011-01-14): "Quantitative analysis of options to reduce risk of hazardous materials transportation by railroad". I read about 1/3 of the thesis and it is very remarkable and explanatory. After the presentation, Kawpraserts does a review of the literature regarding railroad hazardous materials analyses. This provided me with a good amount of articles to read in the future. Then he introduces the concept of route rationalization and how risk could be reduced by rationalization of hazardous materials transportation route structure. FIG5 shows the rationalized route given a set of cities and quantities that need to be transported between them. Although this example is very explanatory, as he states, the practical application of this method may not be feasible, given the size and complexity of the railroad system. 

Later he describes the effects of train speed on hazardous materials transportation risk analysis. I did not get to the conclusion and discussion of this topic yet, so I'm looking forward to continue reading on Monday.

FIG5: Example of the application of the rationalization method.

Today:

-Read Athaphon kawprasert's dissertation                                                   (To be finished)
-Read some articles to start deciding about my specific research topic      (To be finished)

-Literature review on Railroad Hazmat Transportation                                (To be finished)

Next day:

-Continue reading Athaphon kawprasert's dissertation
-Read some articles to start deciding about my specific research topic 

-Literature review on Railroad Hazmat Transportation