Developing Climate Resilience Technologies for Infrastructure: Perspectives on Some Strategic Needs in Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Infrastructure plays a crucial role in our society, supporting our communities with mechanical systems providing critical functions related to energy generation and distribution, heating and air conditioning, communication, control, aviation, railroads, biomedical and other devices, mechanics, water and wastewater, transportation including vehicles, railroad cars, people movers, elevators, escalators, etc. These systems are interconnected and rely on America's infrastructure that has been assessed annually in 17 categories with a school report card style A to F grading system [1]. For example, the ASCE's 2021 Infrastructure Report Card on freight rail and passenger rail with approximately 140,000 rail miles operated by freight's Class I, II, and III railroads

and Amtrak operating over a 21,400-mile network, 70% of which is owned by other railroads, also known as host track. The freight and passenger rail being part of an integrated system, stark differences exist in the challenges faced by the two rail categories. Freight maintains a strong network largely through direct shipper fees with investment on the average of over $260,000 per mile

however, passenger rail requires government investment and has been plagued by a lack of federal support, leading to a current state of good repair backlog at $45.2 billion. Along our nation's busiest passenger rail corridor, the Northeast Corridor, infrastructure-related issues caused 328,000 train-delay minutes, or the equivalent of roughly 700 Northeast Regional train trips from Boston, Massachusetts, to Washington, DC [1].