Numerical and experimental assessment of railway-induced ground vibrations generated by IC/IR trains in Brussels

Abstract

Abstract. Nowadays, the rising demand for new railway networks in Brussels is associated to discomfort and disturbance felt by the neighbourhood. This problem is a major concern of inhabitant surrounding rail infrastructure and causes part of the delay in the Brussels RER network construction. The present paper focuses on the vibratory nuisances generated by domestic trains in Brussels region. A compound experimental/numerical analysis is presented, based on recent investigations on line L161 between Brussels and Luxembourg. A specific site was chosen due to the presence of a singular rail surface defect which induces large ground vibrations when trains pass over. The effect of this defect is examined by means of free field ground vibrations measured during the passing of an AM96 unit, and completed by numerical results obtained from a numerical model. For this assessment, a fully 3D numerical prediction model is built, based on a two-step approach which combines multibody analysis of the vehicle and finite element analysis of the track and surrounding ground. Calculated high ground vibrations stem from singular rail surface defects. The prediction model is validated first and then used to quantify the gain brought by fixing of rail surfaces, with a reduction of local defects.

Railway ground vibration and mitigation measures: benchmarking of best practices

“…On the other hand, these two approaches have some drawbacks including time and budget cost, and in the case of field measurements, these are only applicable to existing grids (or to a physical prototype). The economic and valuable alternative to laboratory tests is the use of numerical simulations (aka virtual prototyping), as this has been demonstrated in railway [32][33][34][35][36], as well as in other different fields [37,38].…”