Centre for Surface Transportation Technology at the National Research Council
Centre for Surface Transportation Technology at the NRC
The National Research Council of Canada’s (NRC) Centre for Surface Transportation Technology, located in Ottawa, provides world class surface transportation research, development, engineering, testing and evaluation services for the rail and road transportation industries, transit, commercial and municipal fleets, defence industry, space industry, as well as a wide range of vehicle and equipment manufacturers.
Types of R&D conducted
- Road and rail vehicle research and engineering
- New product concept development, design, prototyping, evaluation, and licensing
- Simulation and modelling of vehicle mobility in off-road environments
- Preventative maintenance solutions
- Structural analysis and custom testing
- Suspension optimization and analysis
- On- and off-road vehicle and rail vehicle testing services
- Vehicle refurbishment programs
- Dynamic and structural computer modelling and analysis of road and rail vehicles
- Development and prototyping support for vehicle systems
- Problem characterization and solutions
- Environmental simulation, testing and analysis
- Vehicle aero-thermal modelling and analysis
- Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) design and test engineering
- Power management systems design and development
- Alternate fuel systems integration
- Rail – wheel interface optimization
- Design and manufacturing of instrumented railway wheel sets to measure dynamic loads in service
Services
NRC is well equipped to help businesses achieve cohesive, integrated and timely solutions to complex R&D problems for both Canadian and global markets. Each year NRC scientists, engineers and business experts work closely with thousands of firms, helping them bring new technologies to market. Through research collaborations, community innovation, industry support and commercialization opportunities, firms benefit from NRC’s expertise, services, facilities and licensing opportunities while increasing their own innovation potential.
NRC’s leading-edge facilities provide businesses, universities and government partners with access to state-of-the-art equipment as well as results-driven research and training programs. NRCalso offers fee-for-service testing equipment to help businesses accelerate their design cycles.
NRC’s Industrial Partnership Facilities, also known as “business incubators,” provide businesses the opportunity to co-locate with the NRC, enabling them to tap into the organization’s multidisciplinary resources, often leading to successful partnerships.
Partners and collaboration opportunities
NRC works with industry, governments, universities and other partners to leverage resources and advance clean energy technologies to commercialization.
Potential collaborators are encouraged to contact us. Learn more about business opportunities with NRC.
"NRC is a very capable R&D partner that has a good combination of existing lab facilities and a staff with the ability to think outside the box and innovate."
-- Canadian Pacific Railway
Unique or high-value hardware and/or software
Expertise with advanced engineering software tools (ANSYS FEA and CFD, SIMPACK, VAMPIRE, VORTEX, NUCARS, LS-DYNA, SOLID EDGE).
NRC has designed and developed a number of specialized analytical and modelling software tools for the rail industry:
- AutoRD: rapid pre- and post-processing dynamic simulations of vehicle-track systems
- BSS: vehicle braking system simulation, based on a sophisticated brake shoe friction model
- GPUMMEL: quasi-static (steady-state) curving analysis of a railway bogie on track, for wheel/rail optimization
- GrindAssist: grinding pattern design for rail grinders to efficiently grind rail to the desired shapes
- TEDAM: data management package for managing and processing lab and field test data
- TRACE2D: displays and manipulates rail and wheel profile data to rail and wheel optimization
- VDFERS: vertical dynamic analysis for wheel-rail impact due to wheel flats and track joints
Facilities
- Climatic Engineering Facility: produces temperatures ranging from -51° to +55°C; snow, wind, rain, fog, etc., 30 x 6 x 6 metres, one of the largest and most versatile of its type in North America
- Heavy Vehicle Tilt Facility: vehicles up to 26.4 metres in length and weighing 130 tonnes can be tilted up to 35 degrees
- Vehicle Vibration Facility: 4 vertical and 2 horizontal hydraulic actuators shake fully loaded rail and road vehicles; generates vertical actuator loads of up to 26.5 tonnes and horizontal actuator loads of up to 10 tonnes
- Machine and Welding Shops: support all aspects of vehicle system design and prototyping
- Heavy Vehicle Workshops: over 40,000 square feet of facilities
- Proving Grounds at Technical and Protective Operations Facility (TPOF): 450 acres of off-road testing and punishing, calibrated test courses
- Vehicle Squeeze and Tension Facility: imparts up to a million pounds of longitudinal compression, and 400,000 pounds of tension force on rail cars and other items under test
- Road Simulation Facility: four-post, tire-coupled, road simulation facility that reproduces, in a lab environment, the dynamic vertical inputs that fully loaded trucks are subjected to as they travel at full operating speeds
Contact
National Research Council of Canada
Centre for Surface Transportation Technology
2320 Lester Road
Ottawa, Ontario
K1V 1S2, Canada
1-877-672-2672
Craig Ceppetelli, Portfolio Business Advisor
(613) 998-9388
Donald LeBlanc, Manager, Climatic Engineering
(613) 998-3979
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