Nataly De La Fuente
UTRGV Civil Engineering student Nataly De La Fuente had the opportunity of completing her UTCRS REU experience at Texas A&M University. Her research interests included geometric design and materials engineering. For this reason, her summer research project aimed to predict the wear rate on a curved railway track and to find the different parameters affecting this wear rate. Using Miniprof rail measurement tools, Ms. De La Fuente analyzed various curve geometries under different loading, lubrication, and geometry conditions. Her work in this project provided an insight on how the different parameters involved affect the changes in rail geometry that occur due to wear.