Optimisation of Anti-Resonance Vehicle Configuration for Vibration Attenuation of Railway Bridges

Abstract

Movements of the wheel loads and their sequential entry onto the bridges are known as the two root causes for the vibrations of the railway bridges. It is possible to reduce the levels of the unwanted bridge deck oscillations by introducing one or more size adjusted wagon(s) in the train configuration. The added wagon(s) are of different size(s) compared with the other cars in the train configuration. This can disturb the periodicity in the wheel loading. Consequently, it can interfere with the resonance phenomena and prevent the bridge from excessive vibrations. The purpose of this research is to calculate proper sizes for the anti-resonance rail vehicles. Such vehicles need to fulfil the requirements for the controlled excitation of the bridge dynamic response. The bridge is subjected to series of moving loads. A computer aided analytical method is used to calculate the dynamic response of the bridge. Time matrix method is used to facilitate the calculation procedures. A criterion that can be used for the assessment of the dynamic response of all railway bridges is arrived. It is also attempted to manage the levels of the bridge vibrations by simultaneously working on the size of the anti-resonance vehicle, the vehicle axle load and the placement and the distribution of the loads throughout the train. Variety of the train speed of travel is considered. Eventually, the optimized sizes for the anti-resonance vehicle are obtained and their effectiveness in reducing the levels of the bridge vibrations is demonstrated.