The Influence of Random Sleeper Spacing and Ballast Stiffness on the Vibration Behaviour of Railway Track
The foundation of a railway track, formed of railpads, sleepers and ballast, has crucial effects on the rail vibration properties. Usually, the sleeper spacing and ballast stiffness are treated as uniform and represented by constant parameters in theoretical analyses. However, in reality
they are irregular and should be represented by different values at each support point. In this paper, the sleeper spacing and ballast stiffness are treated as random variables and their effects on the rail vibration are explored through numerical simulations. The statistical results show
that the point receptance and the vibration decay rate are distributed in a certain area instead of having a fixed value due to the variability in the sleeper spacing and ballast stiffness. It is found that the phenomenon of the pinned-pinned resonance may be suppressed by the random sleeper
spacing. However, by studying the average vibration due to the interaction with a wheel, it is shown that the random foundation has no significant effect on the average noise radiated by the track.
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 March 2000
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