Reduction of Ground Vibration by Means of Barriers or Soil Improvement along a Railway Track

Lars Andersen, Søren R.K. Nielsen

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

    195 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Trains running in built-up areas are a source to ground-borne noise. A careful design of the track may be one way of minimizing the vibrations in the surroundings. For example, open or infilled trenches may be constructed along the track, or the soil underneath the track may be improved. In this work, the influence of the track design and properties on the level of ground vibration due to a vehicle moving with subsonic speed is examined. A coupled finite element-boundary element model of the track and subsoil is employed, adopting a formulation in the moving frame of reference following the vehicle. The computations are carried out in the frequency domain for various combinations of the vehicle speed and the excitation frequency. The analyses indicate that open trenches are more efficient than infilled trenches or soil stiffening–even at low frequencies. However, the direction of the load is of paramount importance. For example, the response outside a shallow open trench may change dramatically when horizontal load is applied instead of vertical load.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalSoil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering
    Volume25
    Issue number7-10
    Pages (from-to)701-716
    Number of pages16
    ISSN0267-7261
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2005

    Keywords

    • BEM
    • FEM
    • Boundary Elements
    • Finite Elements
    • Elastic Waves
    • Moving Loads
    • Vibration Isolation

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