Abstract

The problem of the ground-borne vibration caused by high speed trains has received considerable attention in recent years, due to the effects of vibration on buildings, in terms of physical damage and on population, in terms of discomfort. The problem has become more significant with the increase of speed and weight of trains, which results in heavier loads on the tracks. Therefore, there is the necessity to find a method, which allows investigating the propagation of vibration waves in the soil. This study aims to study the train-induced ground vibration and the mitigation effects of barriers using a Finite Element Method (FEM) model. Two different types of barriers were evaluated considering their stiffness and a benchmark model without mitigation measures was also analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of the considered barriers. The results of the proposed elaborations have been finalized to the assessment of the incidence of the barrier on the vibration state induced from the passage of a high speed trains and the following conclusions can be made: concrete seems to provide a significative reduction of the vibration. The proposed method can be successfully applied to a preliminary analysis of the influence of different types of barriers on the dynamic properties of vibration waves in the soil.

Keywords:

Damping coefficient, FEM, finite element analysis, ground vibration, railway, Rayleigh wave, trains, wave barriers, wave propagation,

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