Reducing Railway Induced Ground-Borne Vibration by Using Trenches and Buried Soft Barriers

To reduce railway induced low frequency vibration, two mitigation measures - open trenches and buried soft wall barriers have been studied in this paper by using coupled finite element-boundary element models. These models were developed at KU Leuven and ISVR, and have been cross-validated within the EU FP7 project RIVAS (Railway Induced Vibration Abatement Solutions). Variations in the width, depth, location of trench and properties of soft barrier material are considered under various soil conditions. Results show that in all ground conditions, the notional rectangular open trench performs better than the other constructions. The width of an open trench has little influence on its performance, whereas increasing the width of a filled trench reduces the stiffness of the barrier, improving the performance of the trench. Likewise, fill materials with lower Young's modulus give higher insertion losses.