Warning! You're about to edit a page of another user! Are you trying to leave a message instead?
The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then publish the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
| Latest revision | Your text | ||
| Line 17: | Line 17: | ||
One highlight I've had at Michigan Tech is Senior Design. Senior Design was a lot of work, but in the end it was a great learning experience! I was the team manager for a project sponsored by Union Pacific Railroad, Norfolk Southern Railway, and the Rail Transportation Program here at Michigan Tech. | One highlight I've had at Michigan Tech is Senior Design. Senior Design was a lot of work, but in the end it was a great learning experience! I was the team manager for a project sponsored by Union Pacific Railroad, Norfolk Southern Railway, and the Rail Transportation Program here at Michigan Tech. | ||
== Project Background== | |||
Every time railroad crews need to work on track near railroad crossings, it is necessary for the crews to disable the crossing signals otherwise their work vehicles (such as tampers or high rail vehicles) will cause the railroad crossing to activate sporadically. A railroad crossing works by having a special piece of equipment (crossing predictor) use the track as a circuit. As a train approaches the crossing predictors track circuit, the train shunts the circuit. While shunting the track, the voltage on the track lowers as the train approaches the railroad crossing (due to the lowering of the resistance in the track). The crossing predictor uses this decreasing voltage to determine when to activate the crossing signals. A railroad crew disables the crossing signals by using a jumper cable connected to a voltage source to "jump" the crossing predictor and cause it to read a steady voltage. The steady voltage then prevents it from detecting a train or work vehicle. On rare occasions, work crews have forgotten their jumper cables and left the crossing signals disabled after they've left. Our team's goal was to solve the problem of forgotten jumper cables. | Every time railroad crews need to work on track near railroad crossings, it is necessary for the crews to disable the crossing signals otherwise their work vehicles (such as tampers or high rail vehicles) will cause the railroad crossing to activate sporadically. A railroad crossing works by having a special piece of equipment (crossing predictor) use the track as a circuit. As a train approaches the crossing predictors track circuit, the train shunts the circuit. While shunting the track, the voltage on the track lowers as the train approaches the railroad crossing (due to the lowering of the resistance in the track). The crossing predictor uses this decreasing voltage to determine when to activate the crossing signals. A railroad crew disables the crossing signals by using a jumper cable connected to a voltage source to "jump" the crossing predictor and cause it to read a steady voltage. The steady voltage then prevents it from detecting a train or work vehicle. On rare occasions, work crews have forgotten their jumper cables and left the crossing signals disabled after they've left. Our team's goal was to solve the problem of forgotten jumper cables. | ||