Investigation of wave propagation and attenuation in periodic supported rails using wave finite element method

The identification of frequency zones where waves propagate freely (i.e., propagation zones) and where they are attenuated (i.e., attenuation zones) in a railway track, plays an important role in a number of applications, such as nondestructive testing, structure-borne noise prediction, and vibration control. This paper presents a numerical model based on the wave finite element method to study wave propagation and attenuation in periodic supported rails. The model involves postprocessing of element matrices of a rail span (i.e., rail segment between two supports), which is modeled using three-dimensional finite elements meshed through the cross section. The model uses solid elements to capture the complex cross-sectional deformation of the waves and considers the dimensions of the periodic supports. In order to obtain accurate results, the stiffness and the damping coefficients of the supports are calibrated through a finite element model updating procedure that utilizes the modal parameters and the attenuation coefficients obtained from experiments. The results demonstrate that the proposed model is capable of (i) capturing the classic vibrational modes (i.e., vertical and lateral bending), (ii) describing the complex cross-sectional deformation and the mode conversions, and (iii) obtaining the wave propagation and attenuation regions of periodic supported rails.