Co-organised by:  Dr. Pedro Aires Montenegro, FEUP, Universidade do Porto, Prof. Diogo Ribeiro, ISEP, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Dr. Andréas Andersson, KTH, Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm,  Prof. Maria D. Martinez-Rodrigo, UJI, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, 

Railway transport has been playing a critical role in the globalization that is taking place worldwide in the 21st century, especially by contributing to the sustainable development of economies due to the low environmental impact and transportation costs associated with it. To achieve better performance in terms of travelling time, the railway infrastructure has grown significantly in the last decades, especially with the construction of new bridges and tunnels. In terms of high‑speed railways, for example, the necessity to ensure smoother tracks with larger curve radius resulted in new railway lines with a high percentage of viaducts and tunnels. Countries such as China and Japan, for example, have high‑speed networks in which some of the lines have more than 75% of viaducts. Therefore, to face these challenges, research related to railway infrastructures is becoming increasingly important in the railway engineering community.

Within the framework outlined above, this mini-symposium aims to bring together the latest achievements, research and studies regarding the dynamic assessment of railway infrastructures, both in terms of design, monitoring and condition assessment. Theoretical, experimental and computational investigations (or a combination of these) are welcome. Expected papers will cover various aspects related to the dynamic behaviour of the railway infrastructure, including bridges, viaducts, tunnels, track structure (ballasted and non-ballasted systems), track components (sleepers, rail, rail pads, switches and crossings), transition zones and noise barriers. Other relevant topics for discussion will be: train-infrastructure interaction, soil-structure interaction, reliability and train running safety under strong winds and/or earthquake actions, ride comfort, track dynamics, resonance effects, machine learning applied to railways, damage identification, and applications in high-speed railways.