Investigation into Ground Vibration Responses of High-Speed Rail Slab Tracks Considering Train-Track-Soil Interactions

Abstract

Slab tracks are widely adopted in high-speed railway networks. Based on a critical literature review, most previous studies related to ground vibrations have been carried out with the traditional ballasted track. In order to highlight the ground vibration responses of high-speed railway with slab tracks induced by the wheel-rail dynamic interactions under the roughness of rail surface, a novel 3D coupled train-track-soil model is developed based on the multi-body simulation (MBS) principle, finite element modeling (FEM) theory, and perfectly matched layers (PML) method using LS-DYNA. This model has been validated against the field test results. The maximum displacement of the rail is obtained with various train speeds to investigate the critical speed of high-speed railway system. The vibration displacements and velocities of soils are then analyzed under normal and critical speeds. The train-track interactions are also presented. This study could provide new insight into the ground vibrations of high-speed railway with slab tracks in practice.