‘UK-Japan Symposium on Highspeed rails’ will address one of the most pressing issues in the U.K. High speed rail systems make significant difference to the public and provide positive contribution towards the environmental, social and economic sustainability of the communities they serve. They exist to provide social and economic connections, and people quickly take up the opportunities offered by increased mobility. Globally, high speed rails have proven to be the essential catalyst for regional growth and enhanced the quality of everyday life. This symposium thus presents a great opportunity for the UK industry to access to extensive expertise from the pioneer in highspeed rails.

The symposium is free. It aims to attract over 60 participants from academia, rail industry, governments and suppliers. There will be 3 invited speakers from Japan and 5 from the U.K. Also, additional 4-5 oral presentations
will be expected from practical engineers, researchers and students. A poster session will be organized during lunch in this research theme (life cycle management and sustainability).

This event is sponsored by the JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) and JSPS London.

Tentative Schedule:

09.00-09.30: Registration

09.30-09.40: Introduction by Dr Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Chair UK-Japan Symposium on Highspeed rails

09.40-09.50: Welcome by Prof Clive Roberts, Director of BCRRE

09.50-10.00: Openning by Prof Nobuo Ueno, Director of JSPS London

10.00 onwards covering special topics:

Safety and sustainability of Japanese highspeed rail networks by Professor Akira Matsumoto (Nihon Uni)

Technical challenges in infrastructure design and maintenance of Shinkansen tracks by Dr Makoto Ishida (Nippon Koei)

Risk management framework of highspeed rails in the U.K. by Professor Anson Jack (UoB)

Improving measures of resilience in wheel-rail operations for high speed trains by Dr Chen Hua (RTRI)

Highspeed Rail Challenges in the UK by HS2 UK

Critical track speeds on highspeed rail embankments by A/Professor Xueyu Geng (Warwick)

JSPS Funding Schemes and Activities by JSPS director

What HS2 should have learned from the Japanese experience of HS Rail by Professor Roderick A Smith (Imperial College London)

Durability of highspeed rail track systems by Dr Keiichi Goto (RTRI)

Sustainability and low-carbon challenges of highspeed rail systems by Dr Sakdirat Kaewunruen (UoB)

Many other topics will be presented in poster session including:

- Derailment risks on railway turnout systems

- Adaptive risk-based inspection planning of railway tracks in uncertainty setting

- Benchmarking of highspeed rail systems

- Impact loading effects on under sleeper pads

- Novel precast modular steel-concrete composite slabs for high speed rail system

- Resilience of railway concrete sleepers in extreme climate events

- Dynamic fragility modelling of railway crossings

- Machine learning for risk management at railway stations

- Advanced NDT evaluation for remote monitoring of railway crossings

- Peridynamics modelling of rail squats and rail surface defects

- Composite sleepers and bearers,

and many more. [Note: if you wish to show your poster, please contact s.kaewunruen@bham.ac.uk]