Optimization method of railway route scheme in wind-sand areas based on cloud model and improved TOPSIS

Blown sand hazard is the main factor affecting the construction and operation of railways in wind-sand areas, and the scheme optimization of railway route location in sandstorm areas is an important link in railway design. It is also a multi-objective decision-making problem with the coexistence of qualitative and quantitative indicators. In order to solve the technical problems of determining the weight of indicators, quantifying qualitative indicators and multi-attribute comprehensive evaluation, the optimization method of railway route location in wind-sand areas based on the cloud model and improved TOPSIS was studied. Through analyzing the main influencing factors of railway alignment design in blown-sand areas, 26 indices were selected from railway design, unfavorable geology, ecological environment impact and social benefits, and the evaluation index system for route scheme optimization in wind-sand areas was established. Based on the expression of qualitative indicators using language fuzzy numbers, the qualitative description was transformed into accurate numbers through the cloud model, and the weight of indicators in line with the actual selection of railway route schemes was calculated by deviation method. Then the grey correlation method was used to improve TOPSIS, the evaluation model for route scheme in wind-sand area was constructed. The scheme ranking and optimization were realized through calculating the relative closeness between each alternative scheme and the ideal scheme. By taking the railway route design in sandstorm areas of the Golmud-Korla railway as an example, the evaluation model constructed in this paper was verified. The research results show that the optimization result of railway route location is in good agreement with the actual situation of the project. The quantitative method of qualitative indices using cloud model can accurately reflect the attribute information of indicators. The index weight calculated by the deviation method is also more convenient and reasonable, and the influence of subjective factors on decision-making results is reduced. The advantages and disadvantages of each scheme could be better presented by determining the ranking order of all alternatives using this method, which improves the efficiency and accuracy of railway route scheme optimization in wind-sand areas. In the future, the research results could provide a certain decision-making basis for the optimal design of railway route location in wind-blown sand areas. © 2023, Central South University Press. All rights reserved.