Resonant vibration of railway bridges due to the motion of high-speed trains

This paper discusses the resonant vibration of high-speed railway bridge due to the actions of wheelsets and the hunting motion of the train. The dominant frequencies of periodically wheel loading moving at various speeds are analyzed first by a new point of view. The natural frequencies of the first mode in various direction of a high-speed railway bridge were identified from ambient vibration signals by the FT-T methods. Then a range of resonant speeds of the train can be evaluated. To identify the resonant frequencies by the wheelset due to the hunting motion of bogie, the wave length of the motion path of wheelset and the inclined contact angle between the wheel tread and track are used as the parameters. Frequency- velocity relations for wheelset freely and constrained turning are calculated. Those natural frequencies of bridge identified from ambient vibration measurements are used to evaluate the range of critical speeds of the high-speed train running through the railway bridge.