Optimizing Railroad Tank Car Safety Design to Reduce Hazardous Materials Transportation Risk

I develop a modeling approach in which tank car safety design optimization is considered as a two-phase process. The first phase addresses the tradeoff between safety and transportation efficiency by using Pareto optimization to identify the most efficient design combinations to improve safety while minimizing incremental weight. The second phase involves estimation of chemical-specific hazard levels and calculation of the consequent benefits and costs to determine the optimal level of protection for tank cars transporting different hazardous materials. This modeling approach is applied to two different current tank car safety design problems; consideration of tank car safety design enhancements to reduce the risk of transporting toxic inhalation hazard materials, and a group of chemicals that pose risk to the environment. The framework presented in this dissertation is can be used to assist industry and government policy makers to make better-informed decisions for safer transportation of hazardous materials.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Civil Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Saat, Mohd Rapik

Contributors dc:contributor

• Christopher P.L.Barkan

• Operations Research

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3392462

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/83413