Computational & Technology Resources
an online resource for computational,
engineering & technology publications
International Journal of Railway Technology
ISSN 2049-5358
IJRT, Volume 3, Issue 2, 2014
A Two Dimensional Numerical Model to Analyze Critical Velocity of High Speed Infrastructure
R. Ferrara1,2, G. Leonardi2 and F. Jourdan1

1Mechanical and Civil Engineering Laboratory, University of Montpellier 2, France
2Department of Civil, Energy, Environment and Materials Engineering, University of Reggio Calabria, Italy

Full Bibliographic Reference for this paper
R. Ferrara, G. Leonardi, F. Jourdan, "A Two Dimensional Numerical Model to Analyze Critical Velocity of High Speed Infrastructure", International Journal of Railway Technology, 3(2), 59-77, 2014. doi:10.4203/ijrt.3.2.4
Keywords: critical speed, Rayleigh wave, bending wave, train, track, railway, train-track interaction, contact-force, modal analysis, resonance.

Abstract
The vibrational phenomenon which occurs when a passing train excites the train-track coupled system with a frequency close to the resonance of the system is presented in this paper. On the assumption that the train velocity is strictly related to the excitation frequency, this paper shows how a new critical speed concept should be contemplated in train-track interaction, in addition to ones calculated by the Rayleigh and the bending waves theories. A two dimensional finite element–multi-body model was used to carry out the receptance analysis of the train-track coupled system. Moreover, thevertical vibrations that occur at different speeds have been evaluated to investigate the relationship between track vibrations and train velocity. The results show that the peak of vertical vibrations occurs when the sleeper-passing frequency equals the resonance frequency of the train-track coupled system. This relationship seems to be definitively complete even if only a numeric validation is presented in the paper.

purchase the full-text of this paper (price £20)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to IJRT
purchase this issue (price £70 +P&P)