The effect of stiffness and duration parameters to the service life of the pavement structure

The goal of this article is to determine the effect of various material parameters to the fatigue life of the pavement structures. Nowadays many types of mixtures can be built in the pavements, with different stiffness moduli. However, the Hungarian asphalt pavement design method can not handle that. The main cause of failure of the asphalt layers is supposed to be caused by the strains coming from the horizontal tensile stresses at the lowest level of layers. Many calculations were made with various attributes of the layers of the pavement structures i.e. subgrade, base course, binder course and surface course. After these calculations, we can clearly see which parameter of which layer is the most important to build a pavement with long fatigue life

Reutilisation of agricultural buildings

Agricultural buildings (ABs) dominate the countryside and their reutilisation in periurban areas is important in rural diversification and in maintaining a living countryside. These constructions have been examined in various studies, but the reutilisation of ABs in tourism in a spatial context has not yet been scientifically analysed. This thesis analyses agricultural buildings and their properties in order to identify key issues concerning sustainable reutilisation in tourism and the Swedish periurban context. Using statistical data combined with information gathered from surveys, the thesis charts the dynamics of change in periurban AB stock in Sweden and the underlying reasons for these changes. Additional field studies examine the connections between human behaviour patterns/lifestyle and the use of built periurban infrastructure, including analyses of functions, use of materials and issues concerning aesthetics. Finally, actual tourism enterprises using ABs in Sweden are examined in terms of sustainability issues. The results show that rural tourism operators and visitors differ in their views and experiences of reused buildings and the services therein, although both groups consider aggregated building-related factors to be significantly more important than aggregated tourism-related factors. Differences in spatial character provide both advantages and disadvantages. The approaches and efforts of owners to create a sustainable business show similar patterns, irrespective of geographical location. A caretaker role, holistic thinking, management style, quality of service and personal relations are perceived as the cornerstones of sustainable operations. However, approaches to sustainability differ depending on the owner’s personality, lifestyle and background. Operators are also aware of the advantages and disadvantages of reutilising ABs in tourism. This thesis provides a better understanding of spatial issues and their influence on reutilisation of ABs in tourism that may help improve locally anchored sustainable development strategies for the countryside and assist authorities in addressing problems concerning owners, conservation and utilisation

Building sustainability: human aspects and territorial differences of agricultural buildings reused in tourism

This study examined how operators perceive the advantages and disadvantages of traditional agricultural buildings (ABs) used in tourism and whether territorial differences and the human aspect had an influence on the approaches of operators in the sustainable reuse of ABs from a building-related perspective.  A combined questionnaire-based survey and comparative case study revealed that operators are clearly aware of the advantages and disadvantages when reusing ABs in tourism.  Although sustainability was found to be a subjective term for many, building materials and construction technology were chosen according to sustainability principles.  Education, personal background, upbringing and interests, work experience and world view of the owner were major factors in how building-related sustainability was approached.  Drastic changes while reusing ABs, where absolutely necessary (utilities, etc.), were acceptable to operators provided attempts were made to fulfill modernisation and official requirements in a creative and well-conceived way.  This prevented loss of value and building information and ensured sustainable reuse.  Territorial differences emerged, mainly resulting from differences in the local society created by environmental and economic factors. Keywords: rural, construction technology, material, vernacular, rural tourism, Swede

Experimental Investigation on Condition Monitoring Opportunities of Tramway Tracks

The increasing demands for guided transportation modes in urban areas generate the need of high-frequency services. Due to the frequent services, the track deterioration process will be accelerated. Therefore, the exact knowledge of track quality is highly important for every railway company to provide high quality service level.For monitoring of tramway tracks, an unconventional vehicle dynamics measurement setup is developed, which records the data of 3-axes wireless accelerometers mounted on wheel discs of regular in-service tram. In the implementation of prototype system, the bogie side-frame and car body mounted sensors are also fitted to the instrumented vehicle to compare the efficiency of these conventional solutions with the developed arrangement. At the first test period, the instrumented vehicle works as a dedicated inspection vehicle, in order to keep the constant velocity and help to determine the influencing factors on results. Accelerations are processed to obtain the track irregularities, in order to determine whether the track needs to be repaired. Real data come from measurements taken on tram line 49 of the Budapest (Hungary) and they have been validated by comparing results to the actual state of the track provided by a track geometry monitoring trolley and visual inspection. This paper presents the developed methods used for validation and the analysis of preliminary results of the wheel discs mounted accelerometers. This vehicle dynamic measurement system is cheap to implement and no significant modification of the vehicle is required. Therefore, in-service vehicles equipped with this system may serve a good opportunity for monitoring tramway track, while it multiple passes over same track section

Etraffic – an Open Access Transportation Model

This paper presents a modular transportation modellingapproach. In the proposed system travel demand is determinedusing existing statistics. All data describing a national roadnetwork and corresponding traffic demand is loaded into thesoftware application, consisting of a web interface and manageddatabase. Users have access to this dataset and mayfreely modify it to create their own models and scenarios fortransportation studies