AEROVIAV is a railway research project whose objective is to design two new solutions capable of mitigating the aerodynamic phenomena present in the ballast tracks of the High-Speed Lines which reduce the maximum performances of the same as a consequence of the the rolling stock passes through them at speeds of more than 250 km/h, the most important for us is the so-called ballast lift or flight.
The project leader is Foresa, which together with ACCIONA and Metalúrgica Cuevas form the core of AEROVIAV, and acting as subcontractor to ITER among other agencies.
The objective of the task developed by ITER is the full-scale evaluation of the solutions developed during the project for minimising aerodynamic effects on high-speed ballast railway lines, based on three possible scenarios: without solution, with a physical solution and with a chemical solution.
During the first phase, wind tunnel tests were carried out, consisting firstly of reproducing the phenomenon of ballast flight to validate the test model and then evaluating the effectiveness of the physical and chemical solutions developed. Based on the results obtained in this first phase for the physical solution, it was redesigned and a second round of tests was carried out.
The second phase consisted in evaluating these same solutions on a real section of track, which were developed at the Testing and Validation Centre in Brihuega, in the LAV Madrid-Barcelona. In this case, a procedure similar to the wind tunnel was carried out; first a study of the initial conditions (without solution) was carried out, and then the physical solution and the chemical were tested.
