A model for railway induced ground vibrations in the frame of preliminary assessment studies

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the development of an analytical model for the generation and propagation parts of a global model of ground induced vibrations to be used in preliminary assessment studies for the case of at-grade railway infrastructures. The model is designed prioritising its speed, simplicity and usability ahead its accuracy modelling the real railway system. This model takes into account the subgrade as a viscoelastic and homogeneous half-space, the superstructure as a 2-layer supporting model and the vehicle as 1DOF system. With the aim of simplify the model, the superstructure/subgrade interaction is studied in terms of the wheel/rail contact dynamics, bounding in what cases this interaction can be neglected. The adaptation of this model when a far eld semi-analytical model is desired to be used as the propagation model is fully developed, by means of the dimensioning of the near eld and far eld regions.