The predicted vibration and ground-borne noise performance of modern high speed railway tracks

摘要

HS2 is the UK Government’s proposal to build a dedicated high-speed passenger railway that will connect London and Birmingham from 2026 and then, along a Y-shaped route, Manchester in the West and Leeds in the East from 2033. HS2’s vision is to be a catalyst for growth across Britain. By transforming the connectivity and capacity of Britain’s transport system, HS2 will open up local and regional markets.An empirical ground-borne noise and vibration model has been developed for the Environmental Impact Assessment to identify the likely effects caused by the operation of Phase One of HS2 at speeds up to 360km/h. This assessment has identified areas where the track will need to be designed to reduce or avoid ground-borne noise and vibration impacts on sensitive properties located nearby. To predict the effect that track design has on vibration from high speed trains, HS2 has implemented a 3D numerical model to simulate the generation and propagation of vibration in the time domain. This paper provides a comparison between the empirical and numerical predictions using input data gathered for the development of HS2 and presents the predicted vibration and ground-borne noise performance for two modern high speed slab track configurations.