Application of FE-SEA approach in investigation of track properties influences on railway rolling noise generation

One of the main concerns in the railway transportation is environmental pollutions caused by railway noise. The most important source of this noise is the rolling contact between wheel and rail, and therefore, prediction of the rolling noise is a key factor in the management and reduction of the noise. Despite numerous studies carried out on the rolling noise prediction in the available literature, the role of track components on the rolling noise has not been taken into account. That is, the power dissipation within the track superstructures has not been given sufficient consideration. This is addressed in this research by investigating the influences of the track components on the level of railway rolling noise. For this purpose, a new noise prediction approach is developed in this research using finite element method and the statistical energy analysis. This approach has an advantage of considering power dissipation along the track components compared with the previous approaches. The results obtained from the new approach were compared with field measurements carried out in this research. It is shown that the proposed finite element–statistical energy analysis approach is effective in accurate predictions of the ballasted railway track noise.