The Acoustic Effectiveness of Low Height Noise Barrier

The paper deals with the description and verification of a low height noise barrier (LHNB) applied along a 312 m section of a railway track (No. 240) in Tetcice. The LHNB application was used along a railway line in the Czech Republic for the second time. It is a low concrete structure of parabolic shape, fitted with a sound absorbing layer of synthetic recyclate and a thin layer of recycled rubber material. LHNBs are placed as close to the Z-GC maximum moving dimension as possible. The closest possible distance in the Czech Republic is 1.73 m from the rail axis. The LHNB was mounted at a distance of 2.00 m from the rail axis. A greater distance from the rail axis was conditioned on the possibility of the passage of rail vehicles exceeding the loading gauge. The verification of the LHNB efficiency was performed by direct in-situ measurement. Based on the measured data, a model of the investigated area was created in the LimA prediction software. LHNB was defined in the model at different distances from the rail axis. This model led to the determination of the influence of the distance from the rail axis on the acoustic situation.