Mitigation of railway induced ground vibration by heavy masses next to the track

Dijckmans, Arne; Coulier, Pieter; Jiang, Junnan; Toward, Martin; Thompson, D.J.; Degrande, Geert; Lombaert, Geert

doi:10.1016/j.soildyn.2015.04.003

Cited by 67 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…In addition, interventions on the propagation path between source and receiver have the advantage that no modifications of the track are required. These measures include open and in-filled trenches [6,7], wave impeding blocks [8,9] and heavy masses on the soil's surface [1,10,11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficacy of a sheet pile wall as a wave barrier for railway induced ground vibration

Dijckmans

Ekblad

Smekal

et al. 2016

Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering

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This paper investigates the effectiveness of a sheet pile wall to reduce railway induced vibration transmission by means of field measurements and numerical simulations. At Furet, Sweden, a sheet pile wall has been installed in the soil near the track to reduce train induced vibrations in houses close to the track. The depth of the sheet piles is 12 m with every fourth pile extended to 18 m. The efficacy of the wall is determined from in situ measurements of free field vibrations during train passages before and after installation of the sheet pile wall. The field test shows that the sheet pile wall reduces vibrations from 4 Hz upwards. Up till 16 − 20 Hz, the performance generally increases with frequency and typically decreases with increasing distance behind the wall. The performance is further studied by means of two-and-a-half-dimensional coupled finite element -boundary element models. The sheet pile wall is modeled as an orthotropic plate using finite elements, while the soil is modeled as a layered halfspace using boundary elements. The sheet pile wall acts as a stiff wave barrier and the efficacy is determined by the depth and the stiffness contrast with soil. The reduction of vibration levels is entirely due to the relatively high axial stiffness and plate bending stiffness with respect to the horizontal axis of the sheet pile wall; the plate bending stiffness with respect to the vertical axis is too low to affect the transmission of vibrations. Therefore, it is important to take into account the orthotropic behaviour of the sheet pile wall. It is concluded that a sheet pile wall can effectively act as a wave barrier in soft soil conditions provided that the wall is sufficiently deep.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficacy of a sheet pile wall as a wave barrier for railway induced ground vibration

Dijckmans

Ekblad

Smekal

et al. 2016

Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering

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“…These three sites were selected for the study of a range of mitigation measures within the RIVAS project [14,30,31,[34][35][36]. The dynamic soil characteristics for the three sites are given in Tables 5 to 7.…”

Section: Results For Other Ground Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the site of Lincent in Belgium, a shallow top layer is followed by a layer of fine sand (layer 2). Below this a sequence of hard arenite layers embedded in clay is followed by a sequence of fine sand and clay layers (see also [14]). In the model this is represented as two softer top layers with a total thickness of This drop in performance occurs at a lower frequency when the block is below the ground surface.…”

Section: Results For Other Ground Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The choice between measures applied at the source or at the receiver depends, for example, on whether a new building is to be constructed near an existing railway or a new or renewed railway is to be built close to existing buildings. Finally, attenuation in the transmission path can be achieved, for example, by using open trenches [11], in-filled trenches [12], rows of piles [13] or heavy masses [14]; each of these may be located close to the track or close to the buildings to be protected.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Mitigation of railway-induced vibration by using subgrade stiffening

Thompson

Jiang

Toward

et al. 2015

Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering

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Railway-induced ground vibration is often associated with sites with soft ground. Stiffening of the subgrade beneath the railway track is one particular measure that has potential to reduce the vibration level at such sites. However, the mechanisms behind this reduction are not well understood. Here, the effects are examined in the context of two alternative approaches: (i) subgrade stiffening, where the soil directly under the track is stiffened, and (ii) stiff inclusions introduced at some depth beneath the track, sometimes known as 'wave impeding blocks'. The efficacy of the measures is considered for different ground types in a parametric study carried out using a 2.5D coupled finite-element / boundary-element methodology. The soil is considered to consist of a soft upper layer over a stiffer substratum; corresponding homogeneous grounds are also considered. With a 6 m wide, 1 m thick, concrete block directly under the track, the vibration between 16 and 50 Hz was found to be reduced by between 4 and 10 dB for ground with a 3 m deep soft upper layer. For a deeper soft layer the reductions were greater whereas, for a stiffer ground without the soft upper layer, the reductions in vibration from this block were negligible. Slightly smaller reductions in a similar frequency region were observed when the block was positioned 1 m below the 2 surface, suggesting that, as with stiffening directly under the track, the reduction in vibration was primarily due to the increase of the effective stiffness of the soil beneath the track rather than the effective creation of a new, thinner soil layer. Jet grouting is considered as an alternative to concrete and, although it is found to be less effective due to its comparatively low stiffness, it may still be considered as a practical measure for existing tracks on soft soil sites. The reduction in vibration from this form of soil improvement with a depth of 3 m is similar to that for a 1 m thick concrete block. Finally, results are presented for three example sites with different soil properties which show similar trends.

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“…The efficiency of such masses for mitigation of harmonic vibration from traffic was studied by Krylov [4]. Recently, Dijckmans et al [5] introduced the idea of placing an array of heavy masses along a railway track in order to mitigate vibration. The solution was found to have a significant effect.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%