The Effect of Railway Embankment on Vibration Attenuation in Railway Track

One of the major concerns regarding to the urban and intercity railways operation is ground born vibration. This phenomenon not only causes damages in railway substructures but leads to annoyance for people who live in track neighborhoods. Railway embankment including natural fills in addition to providing a suitable foundation for track could be considered as a potential solution to minimize these effects. Reviewing the analytical models to evaluate the railway vibrations, it could be understand that the effects of railway components especially the embankment on vibration reduction have not been investigated clearly. In the current study, through development of a new analytical model considering the railway dynamic load, in addition to study the effects of railway components on track vibration; the embankment effect in vibration reduction has been especially investigated. For this purpose the dominant differential equations on track dynamic behavior have been derived by replacing track components as a series of mass, spring and dampers under the railway sinusoidal load. Consequently, the governed equations have been solved numerically using a MATLAB code. In order to investigate the role of embankment in comparison to the other components, during the track dynamic analysis a series of parametric study have been accomplished on train axle load and speed as well as thickness, stiffness and damping of embankment. The numerical results show the remarkable capability of embankment material on vibration attenuation. As an important finding it has concluded that the embankment thickness up to 3 meter have a predominant effect on vibration reduction.