Reducing the rail component of rolling noise by vibration absorber: theoretical prediction

Abstract

A compound track—absorber model is employed to study the performance of a rail vibration absorber in reducing the rail component of rolling noise. The rail vibration and radiation due to a roughness excitation are calculated with the use of the absorber. Different types of rail absorber and installation locations are considered in calculations to investigate their influence on the absorber's performance. The theoretical predictions show that the rail-radiated noise can be reduced by about 6—8 dB(A) using the rail absorber for the situation modelled here. The most appropriate installation place for a discrete absorber is at mid-span between sleepers because the vibration response there is large. As the rail vibration amplitude is small at sleepers, they are not the appropriate installation place for a discrete absorber to reduce rail radiation via energy dissipation. It should be noticed that the performance of the rail absorber is predicted under idealized conditions, and the noise reduction that can be achieved using the absorber is dependent on some practical factors, which are not further studied in this work.

Keywords

vibration absorber rail damper rolling noise railway track

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Thompson

D. J.

Gautier

P.-E.

‘Review of research into wheel/rail rolling noise reduction’

Proc. IMechE, Part F: J. Rail and Rapid Transit 220 F4 (2006): 385–408 DOI: 10.1243/0954409JRRT79.

Jones

C. J. C.

Thompson

D. J.

Diehl

R. J.

‘The use of decay rates to analyse the performance of railway track in rolling noise generation’

J. Sound Vibr. 293 (2006): 485–495.

Vincent

Bouvet

Thompson

D. J.

Gautier

P. E.

‘Theoretical optimization of track components to reduce rolling noise’

J. Sound Vibr. 193 (1996): 161–171.

Thompson

D. J.

Jones

C. J. C.

Waters

T. P.

Farrington

‘A tuned damping device for reducing noise from railway track’

Appl. Acoust. 68 (2007): 43–57.

Létourneaux

Margiocchi

Poisson

Complete assessment of rail absorber performances on an operated track in France. In Proceedings of the World Congress on Railway research, Montreal, Canada, 2006. CD-ROM.

Maes

Sol

‘A double tuned rail damper-increased damping at the two first pinned–pinned frequencies’

J. Sound Vibr. 267 (2003): 721–737.

van Haaren

van Keulen

G.A.

New raildampers at the railway link Roosendaal–Vlissingen, tested within the Dutch innovation program. In Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Railway noise, Munich, September 2007.

Létourneaux

Cordier

J. F.

Poisson

Douarche

High speed railway noise: assessment of mitigation measures. In Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Railway noise, Munich, September 2007.

Asmussen

Stiebel

Kitson

Farrington

Benton

Reducing the noise emission by increasing the damping of the rail: results of a field test. In Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Railway noise, Munich, September 2007.

10.

T. X.

‘On the railway track dynamics with rail vibration absorber for noise reduction’

J. Sound Vibr. 309 (2008): 739–755.

11.

T. X.

Thompson

D. J.

‘Wheel/rail non-linear interactions with coupling between vertical and lateral directions’

Vehicle Syst. Dyn. 41 (2004): 27–49.

12.

Grassie

S. L.

Gregory

R. W.

Harrison

Johnson

K. L.

‘The dynamic response of railway track to high frequency vertical excitation’

J. Mech. Eng. Sci. 24 (1982): 77–90.

13.

T. X.

Thompson

D. J.

‘Vibration analysis of railway track with multiple wheels on the rail’

J. Sound Vibr. 239 (2001): 69–97.

14.

Dings

P. C.

Dittrich

M. G.

‘Roughness on Dutch railway wheels and rails’

J. Sound Vibr. 193 (1996): 103–112.

15.

Thompson

D. J.

Jones

C. J. C.

Turner

‘Investigation into the validity of two-dimensional models for sound radiation from waves in rails’

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113 (2003): 1965–1974.