Yann Bezin

After studying in France, Yann Bezin graduated with an honours degree in Mechanical Engineering from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and joined the Rail Technology Unit (RTU) at MMU at its inception in 1999 as a graduate engineer. He learned the fundamentals of mathematical modelling of freight and passenger railway vehicles, using a number of multibody dynamic simulation codes either commercially available or developed in-house. Yann became an expert in the field, contributing to numerous industry led projects for bogie suspension design modifications, vehicle acceptance and derailment investigation, as well as contributing to national research investigations such as that on head checks following the Hatfield incident. Yann published his first papers at national workshops and exhibitions in the UK and the software international user conferences. He contributed to organising the 1st international workshop on freight vehicle design at MMU in 2001.

Yann returned to France as a consultant engineer in 2002, collaborating with MSC Software in Italy on the development of the software Adams/Rail and running a number of expert training courses to national railway organisations overseas.

He then returned to MMU to act as the technical manager of a successful project funded by the UK national research council EPSRC and department for trade and industry DTI. The research program in collaboration with Corus (now Tata), MSC Software and Carillion Rail led to the completion of his PhD thesis in 2008 on the integration of Flexible Track System Models (FTSM) within vehicle multibody dynamic software.

Since Yann led the research efforts into several major collaborative EU FP6 and FP7 funded projects on track system innovation (Innotrack), vehicle homologation and cross-acceptance (Dynotrain) and sustainable freight (SustRail). He highly contributed to the successful organisation of the 22nd international IAVSD symposium in Manchester in August 2011 receiving more than 260 international delegates, expert in the field of vehicle dynamics on road and rail.

Yann joined the University of Huddersfield in July 2012 to set up the Institute of Railway Research (IRR) together with former colleagues from MMU. As part of the management team, Yann is acting as Head of research of the IRR.

• Railway track systems (design, construction and mechanical/dynamic behaviour)
• Vehicle-track interaction (dynamic behaviour)
• Wheel-rail contact (mechanical behaviour)
• Railway asset data collection and intelligence (condition monitoring and damage modelling)

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