The development of a rail damping device for reducing noise from railway track

摘要

The component of railway rolling noise radiated by the track dominates in the frequency range up to about 1.5 kHz and often can be more important than the wheel component for the overall noise level. A promising means to reduce the track noise is to increase the damping of the rail and so reduce the length over which vibrations are transmitted along the rail. In order to increase the damping of the rail significantly, particularly at frequencies below 1 kHz, a tuned mass-spring absorber system has been designed. To cover a wide range of frequencies, multiple tuning frequencies are used along with a visco-elastic material with a high loss factor. Suitable materials have been found from tests on samples and prototypes of the damper have been built and tested both in the laboratory and in the field. Results are very promising with reductions of the track component of noise of about 6 dB being found.