Ground-Borne Vibrations Caused by Unsupported Railway Sleepers in Ballasted Tracks

As regards the ground-borne vibrations caused by unsupported railway sleepers in ballasted tracks have not been properly investigated till now, so this subject was studied in the current paper. In this matter, two separate finite element models including train-track dynamic interaction and ground-borne vibrations have been developed. At first, the train-track dynamic interaction has been modeled and then this model has been verified with the past work results. Afterward, the effects of various conditions of railway sleeper supports including the track with fully supported sleepers, track with one and two unsupported sleepers have been investigated. In this regard, many sensitivity analyses have been conducted on sleeper support parameters. In continuation, the track sleeper support forces obtained from the first model have been presented as inputs to FEM model of ground-borne vibrations and consequently the ground-borne vibrations have been estimated. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.