Dynamics of the railway track and the underlying soil: the boundary-element solution, theoretical results and their experimental verification

A combined finite-element boundary-element method is presented in detail to calculate the dynamic interaction of the railway track and the underlying soil. A number of results are shown for ballasted and slab track, demonstrating the influence of the stiffness of the soil and the rail pads on the vertical compliance of the track. The compliance of the track is combined with a simple model of the vehicle giving the transfer function of vehicle-track interaction. An experimental verification of the theoretical results is achieved by harmonic and impulse excitation with and without static (train-) load and by combined measurements of train-track-soil interaction. A clear vehicle-track resonance is found for the slab track with elastic rail pads and for higher frequencies at highspeed traffic, the dynamic axle loads due to sleeper passage are reduced.