Metro-induced vibration attenuation using rubberized concrete slab track

This paper addresses two important worldwide environmental concerns: disposal of waste tyres and attenuation of trains induced vibration. To this end, use of the waste materials in construction of railway concrete slabs for reduction of train induced vibration is investigated in this research. For this purpose, rubber tyre particles with different dosages were used in the concrete mixtures of test specimens. Extensive laboratory tests were conducted on the rubberized concrete specimens to measure their compressive strength, density and damping of the specimens. The effect of rubberized slab track on attenuation of vibration propagated from slab track was investigated by numerical modeling using results of laboratory tests as the input data. The laboratory results obtained indicate that adding rubber particles to the railway slab causes up to 96% increase in damping ratio (for concrete with 10% rubber). Results of numerical analysis elucidates that the rubberized slab track causes up to 21% reduction of the train induced vibration. By compromising between compressive strength and damping of vibration, it is shown that the optimum amount of crumb rubber in the concrete of railway slabs is 2.5% by which the best performance of the railway slabs is obtained.