Simulating Solar Radiation on Railway Networks using Free and Open-Source Tools

Assessing the amount of solar radiation on trains is crucial to ensure the best performance for the air conditioning system and the best thermal comfort for the passengers. In this paper, we develop a novel methodology for simulating solar radiation on train carriages in a railway network. We use free and open-source tools and data such as Blender, OpenStreetMap, and satellite meteorological data to build a computational framework that can simulate solar irradiance on a train carriage that accounts for geographical location, time, and train orientation. First, we obtain the railway trajectory shape from OpenStreetMap and set up the simulation environment in Blender. We compute the incidence angle of solar rays on train carriages using raycasting. Then, we use solar radiation data to estimate the solar irradiance incident on the train carriage. Using this framework, we study the solar radiation on 10 different railway routes in the United Kingdom and provide a detailed spatial and temporal analysis of solar irradiance. Finally, we assess the compliance of solar radiation with the railway standards for air conditioning and thermal comfort.