Ground vibration from high-speed trains: Prediction and countermeasure

This paper outlines a test program in southern Sweden for measurement of the vibration induced in the Found and railway embankment by high-speed trains, together with a rigorous numerical model developed for the prediction of embankment/ground response. In this formulation the ground is modeled as a layered viscoelastic half-space, and the railway embankment is modeled as a viscoelastic beam excited by the moving loads of the train. The model uses the Kausel-Roesset Green's functions to calculate the soil stiffness matrix at the ground-embankment interface and assembles it with the dynamic stiffness matrix of the embankment. The solution is carried out in the frequency domain, and the time histories of the motions are derived through a Fourier synthesis of the frequency components. Numerous simulations of train-induced vibration are presented for the ground conditions and embankment parameters at the test site and compared with measured records. The simulations agree well with the measurements, both in qualitative and quantitative terms. In particular, the large ground deformations registered for train speeds exceeding 140 km/h an reproduced by the simulations. With the help of the prediction model, the effectiveness of a remediation measure for the mitigation of ground vibration is explored.