Analysis of the attenuation of railway squeal noise by preloaded rings inserted in wheels

Abstract

Squeal from railway wheels occurring in short radius curves produces a very intense and highly annoying noise in the range 400-8000 Hz. When the excitation, due to lateral forces acting on the wheel, cannot be avoided, additional systems can be added on the wheel to limit acoustic emission. A very economical approach is the use of metal rings inserted into grooves machined in the wheels. Unfortunately the effectiveness of these so called damping rings varies from one wheel to another and for different rings. Because the mechanisms of attenuation are not well understood, these variations have not to date been explained. The aim of this paper is to clarify the attenuation mechanisms for damping rings especially for the first three axial wheel modes, which are the predominant sound radiated ones in curve passage and for which the effectiveness of the treatment is lower. It has been generally assumed that friction between the ring and the groove has been the mechanism for squeal noise attenuation. Here it is shown that the vibration attenuation is due to modal coupling between the wheel and the ring. The validity of this proposed mechanism is investigated using experimental measurements and theoretical and numerical models. The results presented here will provide an avenue for optimization of the damping ring noise control treatment to obtain significant levels of squeal noise attenuation notably for the first three axial modes.

Active Vibration Control for the Mitigation of Wheel Squeal Noise Based on a Fuzzy Self-Tuning PID Controller

“…e other mitigation methods, such as adding preloaded rings to wheels [22], installing constrained layer dampers [23], and using composite material on wheels [24], have been introduced for noise suppression by increasing wheel damping. Rahim Marjani and Younesian [25,26] also applied shunted piezoelectric patches to increase the modal damping of wheels.…”

Design and Modeling of Viscoelastic Layers for Locomotive Wheel Damping

“…The conclusion was that by also increasing the ring damper mass mounted on the wheel, the damping efficiency on the wheel increased. The problem is that the theoretical design mechanism of this type of damping procedure, called a ring damper, is still not well understood [18]. As an advantage, ring dampers are simple and cost-effective compared with other wheel dampers.…”

Performance Analysis of Piezoelectric Actuators in Railway Wheel Squealing Noise Mitigation

“…In order to enhance wheel damping, diverse methods have been proposed so far. We may address to (a) preloaded rings inserted into the wheel [25], (b) mounting damping layers to the wheel [4,26] and carbody [27], and (c) dynamic vibration absorbers [28]. Each method has its own costs and benefits.…”