Day 11: June 17, 2013

Although my plan for the day was to keep reading kawprasert's dissertation, when I got to the office in the morning, Jesus told me that the presentation needed to be rearranged. Instead of dividing the ppt in 2 parts it was decided to do it in 3 parts, so that the final results were more clear to the customer. it was necessary to do some new maps, so Jeff and I worked on that. Later we both organized to change the rest of the presentation (graphs and tables). 

At 2:00 pm we all decided to attend the SNCF Concrete Tie Research presentation by Philippe Pouligny (Head of Track Engineering Division). It was very interesting to learn what are the challenges that SNCF is facing specially on the HSR where trains go as fast as 350 Km/h. Moreover, Philippe also discussed the main topics that are currently being researched and why they are focussing on them. (different types of fastening systems, hollow concrete ties...)

At the end of the day we presented the final risk analysis ppt, which summarizes our work for the past two weeks, to professors Saat and Barkan. There was a good discussion regarding the more surprising presented values and we received some very much appreciated comments. Tomorrow I will work on incorporating those suggested changes.

Today:

-Continue reading Athaphon kawprasert's dissertation                                (no time)
-Read some articles to start deciding about my specific research topic       (to be finished)

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

*-Work on the final presentation (change format and add 3 parts)               

*-Presentation of the the risk analysis project to professor Saat and Barkan 

*-Attend the SNCF Concrete Tie Research presentation by Philippe Pouligny (Head of Track Engineering Division)

Next day:

-Work on the changes of the risk analysis presentation

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

-Literature review on Railroad Hazmat Transportation

-Attend the weekly RailTEC meeting (Hay Seminar Presentation)