The 23rd edition of NT-Expo – Forging the Future of Railways, held this year in the Anhembi District of São Paulo, began this Tuesday, the 22nd. Recognized as one of the main events in the sector in South America, the fair arrives at a time marked by the appreciation of the railway model, both for urban mobility and for freight transportation.

According to the National Association of Railway Transporters, ANTF, the sector received investments in the order of 14 billion reais in 2024 and expects an additional 54 billion reais in the next three years.

IEME Brasil and LAEDE, companies that have metro-rail engineering in their DNA, are present at NT-Expo (stand A061) to share the news and welcome customers, partners and friends.

Come visit us.

The 23rd NT-Expo will continue until Thursday, 24/04.

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LAEDE, a laboratory for static and dynamic mechanical testing of materials and structural components, which is part of IEME Brasil, begins 2025 strengthened by the modernization process of its facilities and the acquisition of new equipment. The laboratory now has a new hydraulic unit and a new controller for hydraulic actuators, which together increase the company’s efficiency and service capacity.

“The hydraulic unit increases the laboratory’s capacity to perform more simultaneous tests, offering a time saving in these services. With the new controller, the laboratory is now able to control more hydraulic actuators simultaneously, in addition to modernizing the precision of the tests”, explains Lucas Juliani, director of LAEDE. In addition, the new hydraulic unit is more modern from an environmental point of view, providing energy savings of around 30% for its operation.

The equipment particularly benefits the performance of material fatigue tests, which can be performed with greater quality, accuracy and speed. “With this equipment and the ongoing modernization of the laboratory, LAEDE, which has Inmetro accreditation, the only one in Brazil for various tests on metro-rail components, will double its capacity to perform tests, being able to serve its customers much more quickly,” says Marco Juliani, director of IEME.

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On February 13, MorumBIS hosted none other than Shakira, performing the second show of her world tour “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran”. The Colombian singer returned after seven years for a show full of classics from her career, sung in unison by almost 80 thousand people.

Shakira, with 35 years of experience, has already won 266 awards and had 590 nominations, including 3 Grammy Awards and 12 Latin Grammy Awards, making her the most awarded female Latin artist of all time.

As we know, excessive vibration from the audience in the stands poses safety risks if it exceeds the limits allowed by technical standards, and can cause panic, accidents and even structural collapse. Therefore, regular monitoring of structures is essential, as is the case with São Paulo Futebol Clube (SPFC), when looking after the well-being of its stadium users and its assets.

At Shakira’s concert, as well as at other events of this size, the IEME Brasil team was present to measure the behavior of the structure, using sensors and evaluating the effects of dynamic loads generated by the public. This type of monitoring ensures not only the integrity of the construction, but also the safety and comfort of spectators.

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After two years as an Accredited Inspection Body (OIA), IEME Brazil has just undergone a supervisory assessment that resulted in a recommendation to maintain INMETRO Accreditation, which enables the company to certify engineering projects and works prepared by public works concessionaires. It is worth remembering that project inspection is a mandatory contractual requirement for public works concessionaires.

INMETRO Accreditation is one of the service fronts of IEME Brazil, a company with over 35 years of experience in the areas of Engineering Projects (metro-rail systems, bridges, dams, stadiums and structures in general), Urban Development (land regularization, urbanization of settlements, accessibility and social work) and Laboratory Tests (LAEDE) focused on metro-railways, civil structures and shock absorbing systems, elastomers, vibration, noise and construction materials.

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Government of the State of São Paulo / Gilberto Marques / Creative Commons

Government of the State of São Paulo / Gilberto Marques / Creative Commons

 

 

On November 29, in Brasília, BNDES announced a financial contribution of R$10.65 billion for infrastructure projects in São Paulo. The resources, which are part of the New PAC (Growth Acceleration Program), will be allocated to expansion projects for the São Paulo subway, a road complex, a modern rail link between the city of São Paulo and Campinas (about 100 km away), and the purchase of 1,300 electric buses.

Infrastructure projects and projects, especially in the road and metro-rail areas, are the main activity of IEME Brasil, which has been working for over 35 years with instrumentation and monitoring of roads, data processing and analysis for engineering reports, various tests, and accredited inspection (by INMETRO) of road and rail projects and projects. In addition, it has LAEDE, a laboratory that has Cgcre accreditation (ABNT NBR ISO/IEC 17025) and is part of the Brazilian Network of Testing Laboratories (RBLE).

Due to investments in infrastructure, which are already reflecting an increase in demand, LAEDE recently acquired new equipment (hydraulic pumps and controllers) for testing metro-rail components and systems. The hydraulic pump, for example, is a state-of-the-art piece of equipment, capable of saving up to 20% of energy, and is the first of its kind to be installed in Brazil.

The investments ratify IEME’s commitment to the quality and safety of the projects and works in which it participates, remembering that the company is present on all São Paulo subway lines and in the structural tests of Rodoanel Norte, to name a few examples. The company also carries out a series of works focused on land regularization and social housing.

During the construction of Line 5 of the São Paulo Metro, we had the privilege of carrying out an impressive test at LAEDE on a full-size prototype of the permanent track of this line. This slab, 14 meters long and weighing a surprising 40 tons, was built inside our laboratory for a unique experiment.

The video below shows the moment when the prototype passes through the natural frequency and enters resonance when subjected to Vibrodina. It is surprising that a slab with such dimensions and weight can move in such a way.

The objective of the test was to confirm the efficiency of the vibration attenuation system to mitigate the impacts produced by the passage of trains on the magnetic resonance equipment of the Hospital São Paulo, located very close to the track.

This world-first system was conceived and designed by IEME Brazil with devices custom-made by Vibtech.

This is yet another example of IEME and LAEDE’s commitment to technological innovation and engineering excellence. This is how we transform challenges into high-impact solutions for Brazil and the world!

The “New King of Pop”, nickname given to the American singer and multi-instrumentalist Bruno Mars, lives up to his title. During the six shows he gave in São Paulo, from October 4 to 13, the star gathered a true legion of fans at MorumBIS. Approximately 409 thousand tickets were sold for the São Paulo tour, 15% of which were for tourists from other cities, according to SPTuris, the city’s events and tourism company.

As always happens on these occasions, a team from IEME Brasil was present at the São Paulo Futebol Clube (SPFC) stadium to monitor the structural behavior of the stands. The monitoring included sensors to measure the acceleration of the structure, subjected to dynamic loads, such as those generated by the public at artistic and sporting events.

It is worth remembering that the excitement of the audience generates vibrations in the structure that can exceed the limits allowed by technical standards and cause panic, accidents and even structural collapse. Regular monitoring, as carried out by SPFC, ensures the safety and comfort of users.

As a matter of interest, Bruno Mars has already won 15 Grammy Awards, including three in the “Record of the Year” category, in addition to dozens of other important awards since the beginning of his career in 2010, with the release of the album Doo-Wops & Hooligans.

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The Rio Negro Bridge, as the Jornalista Phelippe Daou Bridge is known, connecting Manaus to the city of Iranduba, in the state of Amazonas, is considered a landmark of Brazilian engineering. It is the largest cable-stayed bridge in Brazil, with a total length of 3.6 km, and was inaugurated in 2011.

IEME Brasil performed dynamic tests on the cable-stayed section (400 m), an essential measurement to evaluate the structure and ensure its safety and durability.

In the video by Caio Becocci Pugliese, a panoramic flight over this iconic structure of our engineering.

Watch the video

A team from IEME Brazil was present at the São Paulo Futebol Clube stadium on Saturday, September 7, to monitor the structural behavior of the stands during the concert by Canadian singer The Weeknd.

As is regularly done at events at MorumBIS, the monitoring work included sensors to measure the deformation of the structure, subjected to dynamic loads, such as those generated by the public at artistic and sporting events. The measurement is important because the excitement of the audience generates vibrations in the structure that can exceed the limits permitted by technical standards and cause panic, accidents and even structural collapse. Regular monitoring, as is done by SPFC, allows the adoption of preventive measures that guarantee the safety and comfort of users.

Due to the regular monitoring of the structure, the excitement was only due to the show, which ended the trilogy that began with After Hours (2020) and continued with Dawn FM (2022), at the same time that the singer gave a small sample of “Hurry Up Tomorrow”, his new album. The show ended with a pyrotechnic show on the huge stage set up on the track and drones forming the name of the artist’s new work, which drove the audience wild.

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Safety and optimization of preventive maintenance are priorities for IEME Brasil and LAEDE when it comes to evaluating their customers’ metro rail systems. To achieve this, the company relies on cutting-edge technologies and methodologies, the result of exchanges and monitoring of studies in some of the most advanced technological centers on the subject. One of the resources adopted by IEME for this purpose is the instrumented wheelset calibrator, studied in Italy by the Università degli Studi di Firenze, Sapienza in Rome and the Polytechnic of Milan, institutions visited by the company.

But what is the instrumented wheelset calibrator?

“The calibrator is a bench designed to apply existing loads on the permanent track onto an instrumented wheel set with the aim of correlating wheel-rail contact forces and deformations. To this end, electrical resistance strain gauges, hydraulic jacks, actuators and various load cells are used, in addition to a structure capable of supporting such loads”, explains engineer Tiago Juliani, Engineering coordinator at IEME Brasil.

There is a variety of information obtained by the calibrated instrumented wheelset. With the passage of the instrumented wheelset, the wheel-rail contact forces and the L/V relationship (lateral force / vertical force of the wheel) are obtained along the entire path of the train, which may indicate problems both on the permanent track as well as in the rolling stock, such as geometric imperfections in the track, welding defects, failures in railway components, poor maintenance of tracks and wheels, among others. Furthermore, the operational risk of the line is assessed with the L/V ratio.

Therefore, the calibrator is adopted whenever a new measurement campaign is carried out with the instrumented wheelset and, if the same previously instrumented wheelset is used, there has been a certain mileage between one campaign and another.