IEEE EMC Society Chapter Webinar | Railway Electrification: EMI Lessons Learned and Ongoing EMC Challenges by Dr Alex Gavrilakis, Senior Design Engineer, Network Rail, UK.
This talk will commence by briefly discussing the different railway electrification systems employed within the UK railway infrastructure. It will then proceed to discuss the main EMC challenges faced on electrified railways and how they have been controlled and mitigated to date. It will also cover envisaged future challenges with new technologies being introduced within the railway infrastructure.
Although the EMI/EMC risks and examples will be based on the experience within the UK railway infrastructure, the lessons learnt and the challenges are expected to be applicable to most of the railways across the globe.
This talk will be of interest to both practising Railways EMC Engineers and also to anyone that wants to have a basic understanding and awareness of the main EMC challenges faced within a Railway environment.
About the Speaker
Dr Alex Gavrilakis is a Senior Design Engineer at Network Rail. Network Rail is the owner and operator of the majority of the UK railway infrastructure. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE (SMIEE) and a Chartered Engineer (CEng). Alex obtained his PhD on Applied Electromagnetics from De Montfort University (UK) back in 2004. During his time in academia, he published a number of journal/conference papers on EM modelling of communication cables. Subsequently, he moved to industry where he worked for ERA Technology, (now named RINA) from 2004 until 2014 and for Atkins (now named AtkinsRealis) from 2014 until 2016. He joined Network Rail in late 2016, where he leads the EMC Design Team within the Route Services department.
His work covers both EMC Design and Assurance activities for new railway Infrastructure projects, including enhancements and renewals. He is also involved with fault finding/troubleshooting of EMC/EMI issues and for the last couple of years he has a particular technical interest in the assessment and mitigation of harmonics within the electrified railways.
He was the co-author of the Rail Standards and Safety Board (RSSB /UK) guidance of the Application of the Control of Electromagnetic Fields at Work Regulations within the UK railways. Lastly, he has also produced a set of EMC Technical Requirements (CR-T) to be applied in NR-owned Projects by the Designers/Contractors.
