Open Collections

Hegazi, Mohamed

University of British Columbia

The transport sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions globally with up to 14% of global emissions. It is one of the most difficult to decarbonize as evidenced by an increased proportion in localities with renewable energy grids. For example, approximately 38% of British Columbia’s GHG emissions come from transport due in part to 87% of its electricity production coming from hydro power. The railway sector presents a unique opportunity to start decarbonizing transport since railway vehicles operate on fixed tracks and therefore present less of a logistical challenge. Railway networks rely on nodes called yards to assemble and disassemble trains for dispatching. Locomotives that operate in these yards are called switcher or shunter locomotives and unlike mainline locomotives they do not travel long distances and rarely leave the yard. Switcher locomotives contribute disproportionately higher levels of emissions on a per unit volume of fuel basis when compared to mainline freight or passenger locomotives. It is reported that switcher locomotives produce almost twice as much nitrogen oxides and particulate matter emissions as mainline freight locomotives, more than twice the hydrocarbons (HC) emissions, and similar levels of carbon monoxide (CO) and sulfur oxide emissions. Switcher locomotives have an aggravated impact on human health as they often operate in and around railway yards that are often located inside cities (population centers). Switcher locomotives present a unique opportunity to apply hydrogen fuel cell battery hybrid (hydrail) technology as a zero emissions solution. This research addresses a gap in knowledge related to the understanding of switcher locomotive duty cycles (power demand) and the sizing of the major components in a hydrail retrofit. An in-service switcher locomotive was instrumented with sensors and a duty cycle was synthesized. In addition, a methodology for sizing the major components in a hydrail retrofit was presented. A technology demonstrator named Hydrail One was prototyped to demonstrate the viability of the technology for locomotive applications and to be used as a research and educational platform to advance knowledge in this field.

Text

2022-12-01

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/83334

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/