VERTICAL VIBRATION ATTENUATION IN RAILWAY TRACK: A WAVE APPROACH

A wave approach is used to determine the attenuation of vertical bending vibrations along an infinite railway track. An innovation is the inclusion of the effects of the second rail, and particularly the “mode” defined by its phase delay with respect to the vibrations of the first rail. This “mode” could refer to the two rails vibrating symmetrically (in-phase) or antisymmetrically (out-of-phase), for example. The results show that this “mode” shape can strongly influence the attenuation at some frequencies. A small parametric study provides results on the effect of some track design parameters on the attenuation behaviour.