Characteristics of Vibration and Sound Radiation of Metro Resilient Wheel

Abstract

Abstract Resilient wheels are extensively used in urban rail transit, especially for tramway systems, owing to its advantages in noise reduction. A new type of resilient wheel for a metro is designed, and its characteristics of vibration and sound radiation, including the rolling noise of a resilient single wheel coupled with a track, are studied in this paper. A two-step research is presented. Firstly, laboratory experiments were conducted to obtain the vibration response of the designed resilient wheel under the radial excitation on its tread. Secondly, the rolling noise model of the resilient wheel coupled with a slab track used in a metro line is developed. The wheel model is based on the 3D finite element and boundary element methods and verified by using the experimental results obtained from the laboratory. The track vibration model is based on the wavenumber finite element method, and the track sound radiation is calculated by using an efficient frequency-domain Rayleigh method. The interaction of the resilient wheel and the slab track is analyzed considering the measured wheel/rail roughness of the metro. The contribution of the resilient wheel to the reduction of wheel/rail system noise is analyzed. The results show that the resilient wheel can effectively reduce the wheel/rail rolling noise by approximately 2 dB(A) to 3 dB(A), mainly because the radiated noise by the rail is reduced. In addition, the elastic modulus of the rubber has an important influence on the noise reduction of resilient wheels.

Keywords

• Resilient wheel
• Wheel/rail rolling noise
• Noise reduction
• Laboratory experiment
• Finite element and boundary element methods