The TRANSAERO project - Joint European railway research on transient aerodynamics

The TRANSAERO-Project is the first project within the Brite/Euram framework of the European Union where the European railway undertakings operating high-speed lines with maximum speeds over 200 km/h joined their forces to investigate aerodynamic effects of increasing importance for the modern railway system. The acronym TRANSAERO stands for "Transient Aerodynamics for Railway System Optimisation" and bundles the expertise of three railway companies and eight academic research institutions in Europe to make a major step in progress of the physical understanding and the technical development of the time-dependent effects of side-wind forces, trains passing and pressure waves in tunnels. This paper presents the background of the project work, the project structure and some of the most striking results of the numerous investigations.