SPECIAL NOTICE
A -- Notice of Intent to Issue a Sole Source Purcahse Order for OBJECTIVE EVALUATION OF RISK REDUCTION FROM TANK CAR DESIGN & OPERATIONS IMPROVEMENTS
- Notice Date
- 1/20/2015
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Office of Acquisition and Grants Services, Mail Stop 50, West Bldg, 3rd Floor, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, Washington, District of Columbia, 20590
- ZIP Code
- 20590
- Solicitation Number
- DTFR53-15-KB-00002
- Archive Date
- 2/19/2015
- Point of Contact
- Keith Boyea, Phone: 2024931341
- E-Mail Address
-
keith.boyea@dot.gov
(keith.boyea@dot.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The United States Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Admnistration, under FAR 13, intends to issue a sole source purchase order to Sharma and Associates of Hinsdale, IL for phase III of the "Objective Evaluation of Risk Reduction From Tank Car Design and Operations Improvement." Sharma & Associates, Inc. has performed Phase I and currently worked on Phase II of a contract resulted from the Broad Agency Announcement. The results of Phase I were very satisfactory and useful on the development of a proposed rule "Hazardous Materials: Enhanced Tank Car Standards and Operational Controls for High-Hazard Flammable Trains" This contract is intended to expand upon the work performed by Sharma & Associates, Inc. (SA) for the United States Department of Transport (US DOT). This work involved SA combining finite element modeling, train dynamics simulation and experimental data to develop a method to determine the probability that a given tank car would be punctured in a derailment. This contract seeks to expand those same models and procedures, along with developing new models and procedures, to determine the probability that a tank car would be breached in a derailment and to further expand the approach to include a larger range of tank car designs (including novel constructions) and alternate operating conditions such as reduced speeds, use of distributed power (DP), Electrically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) brakes, etc., and a more detailed review/validation of the methodology. Consequently, there are several reasons why this project cannot be completed in a cost-effective way that meets government requirements by another contractor: 1. SA has completed the first two phases of this work. An estimate of the total time to redevelop this work would be 9 months and $225,000. Thus, significant additional time and cost would be incurred if another company were to perform this contract. 2. The research that has been conducted is highly specialized. While the computational modeling tools and techniques used in the research are relatively common in industry, the specialization and application to rail tank cars is very limited. Few work in the area of tank car puncture. The individual finite element models of train cars, the individual train models used in the dynamics modeling packages, the method to combine all of these models to determine the risk that a given train car will be punctured in a derailment, and the methods used to validate this work with experimental data are all proprietary and solely owned by SA. The use of a different contractor would require extensive preparation on background information, familiarization with the methodology, familiarization with the already collected databases, and create new simulations. Such preparation would require time, thereby introducing delay into the timely completion of this project, and would also cost the Government considerable additional money. NO SOLICITATION OR REQUEST FOR QUOTE IS AVAILABLE. Notwithstanding, any firm that believes it is capable of meeting this requirement may submit a response, which if received by the closing date of this announcement, will be considered. Responses to this announcement must be in writing to the Contracting Officer, Keith Boyea, at keith.boyea@dot.gov.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOT/FRA/OAGS/DTFR53-15-KB-00002/listing.html)
- Record
- SN03620355-W 20150122/150120234735-e31a32a8aebdf1b2c6f63f0f5b521ef9 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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