Experimental Investigation on the Vibration Reduction Characteristics of an Optimized Heavy-Haul Railway Low-Vibration Track

Heavy-haul railway has been developed rapidly in many countries in the world due to its great social and economic benefits. One of the key technologies for heavy-haul railway is the reduction of vibration on the track structures and its surrounding due to impact load induced by the train in service. The vibration behaviors of two kinds of low-vibration track (LVT) systems for heavy-haul railway are investigated in this paper. Firstly, two indoor full-scale low-vibration track models (new LVT and traditional LVT), which include rail, fastener, bearing block, rubber boot, track slab, and foundation base, were constructed according to design drawings. Secondly, the vibration responses of the different track components under the impact excitation of a dropping wheelset were measured. Thirdly, the time-domain characteristics of each track component of the two LVTs were compared by the acquired vibration time-history curves. Finally, the frequency-domain distribution was analyzed, and the vibration reduction performance was evaluated by the comprehensive time-frequency analysis results. The results show the new LVT has lower vibration acceleration, shorter duration of vibration period, lower vibration frequency of track components, and most importantly an obvious vibration reduction effect on the ground. The research results are useful to further optimize the design of LVT to reduce the vibration under train impact load.