Coupled Vibrations between Railway Vehicle Wheels and the Rail : 3rd Report, Analysis of Vertical Steady-state Vibrations

Rolling noise arises from the interaction of the vibration characteristics of rails and wheels through the points of contact. This paper deals with the coupled vertical vibrations between a rail and a wheel, regarding the rail as an infinitely long Timoshenko beam installed on an elastic foundation and the wheel as a point mass. The authors analyse the linear and nonlinear vibrations due to the linear and nonlinear contact forces between the rail and the wheel respectively, for the case that the wheel moves along the rail with a sinusoidal irregularity. The influences of several factors of the rail upon the coupled vibration characteristics are also examined. The random vibrations due to the irregularity of the rail are also discussed, and the importance is pointed out not only the vibration at the contact point, but also the distributed vibration in the longitudinal direction of the rail.