Sharma & Associates - Transportation Research and Engineering Consulting

Sharma & Associates (SA) provides research and engineering consulting services to the transportation industry. Since 1995 we have delivered safe, effective, and efficient solutions to our customers. Our expertise includes mechanical, structural, and electrical engineering and design, crashworthiness, fatigue, dynamics, instrumentation and testing, metallurgy, failure analysis, product development, ride-quality testing and analysis, witness for legal counsel, risk modeling and analysis, production improvement, and economic analysis.

SA's customer list includes transportation companies, federal, state and local government agencies, the US Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the Association of American Railroads (AAR), domestic and foreign railroads, transit agencies, car and wagon builders, locomotive builders, fleet managers, railway component suppliers, larger engineering consulting companies, and heavy equipment manufacturers.

TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING CONSULTING

Some of SA's past projects have included structural design of locomotives, bridge testing for maintenance and rehabilitation recommendations, solving a compressor fan problem for a commuter railroad, solving a highway truck structural reliability issue for maintenance planning, designing a braking system for the European market, and designing a truck or bogie for high speed freight. SA is expert in vehicle dynamics, and designs for heavy axle-load implementation.

BRIDGE INSPECTION, RATING AND FATIGUE ANALYSIS

An example of SA's work with bridges was the testing and analysis of a railroad bridge that crosses the Missouri River at Pierre, South Dakota, US. The bridge consists of a 446ft truss (swing span), four 350ft trusses, and three deck plate girder (45ft, 64ft and 53ft) approach spans. The spans were inspected visually, tested, and rated to determine their capacity to carry heavy axle loads.

SA also conducted fatigue analysis on the truss spans to evaluate remaining life. The first picture on this page shows the swing span truss.

SA secured projects to conduct strength and life estimation studies for 26 Indian Railway (IR) bridges. This work included development of a complete instrumentation suite and full-scale testing of the bridges to include longitudinal, vertical and lateral strains, accelerations, tilt and displacements. The work resulted in fatigue life estimation and recommendations for remedial actions to achieve the desired lifespan.

MECHANICAL AND STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING DESIGN

SA provided the structural engineering, design, drawings, and documentation to support the installation and successful utilization of US-built motive power related components onto an existing Russian-built locomotive frame. These components included the diesel engine, alternator and auxiliary generator, cooling hood, equipment rack, air compressor and inertial hatch.

TRAIN RIDE-QUALITY TESTING AND ANALYSIS

A major US freight railroad contracted SA to collect over-the-road data on a special train that was to run uninterrupted from Chicago, Ilinois, to Los Angeles, California, and back. The railroad's tight schedule allowed SA only three days to set up and instrument a TOFC inter-modal train with a data collection system and tri-axial accelerometers in four different locations along the train.

After the trip, SA delivered the data in histograms and specific event-driven time histories in an easily understandable and useable format. SA exceeded the customer's expectations by completing the project exactly a week after notice to commence. SA's efficient service helped the railroad to win business with a major shipper.

HIGH-SPEED FREIGHT TRUCK

SA, through US Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) government funding, has developed a high-speed freight truck or bogie design that is currently prototyped. This product has performed well during yard testing.

The design will include braking systems (both tread and disk), and is designed to run at 150mph without the onset of lateral instability or truck hunting. FEA and vehicle dynamics modeling was utilized in the design. The design is currently being fine-tuned and will undergo complete AAR Chapter XI type testing in 2008.