Investigation of acoustic transmission beneath a railway vehicle by using statistical energy analysis and an equivalent source model

[EN] An approach is presented for modelling the noise propagation beneath the train floor and this is applied to rolling noise sources. It is assumed that the sound incident on the train floor is made up of a direct and a reverberant component. A combination of two numerical modelling approaches is considered to deal with these: an equivalent source model, to represent the direct component, and statistical energy analysis (SEA) for the reverberant part. In the equivalent source model, the wheel is replaced by monopole and dipole sources, which represent its radial and axial radiation. The rail vertical vibration and the sleepers are replaced by arrays of monopole sources while the rail lateral vibration is replaced by an array of lateral dipoles. The sound power of the rolling noise is obtained by using the TWINS model. In the SEA model, the region beneath the train floor is divided into several volumes and the power input to these subsystems is assumed to be due to the first reflections from the train floor and the ground. The reverberant and direct sound have very similar contributions to the total sound power incident on the train floor although this depends on how the equipment is arranged beneath the train. The modelling approach is verified by comparing the predicted sound pressure levels with laboratory measurements and with field tests.
This work has been funded by the China Scholarship Council and the RUN2Rail H2020/Shift2Rail project (Grant agreement No: 777564). The contents of this publication only reflect the authors' views and the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained in the paper. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Hongseok Jeong for his assistance in the laboratory measurements and Metro de Madrid for assistance in the field tests. All data published in this paper are openly available from the University of Southampton repository at 10.5258/SOTON/D1552.