Experimentation on Vibration Transmission Characteristics of Modern Tram Tracks

In order to explore vibration transmission characteristics of different tracks in modern tram traffic (MTR), the MTR in a city was selected as the case, three different tracks were measured, i.e., ordinary track without vibration absorption elements, ordinary track with elastic cladding materials, and embedded track. Based on the principle of hammering test, the rail vibration decay rate, frequency response characteristic of each track component and insertion loss were obtained. The test results were compared with other anti-vibration tracks. Results show that the vibration decay rate of the embedded track exhibits frequency dependency, which has a maxima of 5.9 dB/m at 1600 Hz frequency-band. The first rail resonance point of the embedded track appears near 160 Hz, the amplitude of frequency response function and resonant frequency are both lower than that of the ordinary track without vibration absorption elements. Overall, compare to the ordinary track with elastic cladding materials and other anti-vibration tracks, the embedded track demonstrates better vibration reduction effect in longitudinal direction of rails in mid- and high-frequency range, and thus theoretically the wheel-rail noise can be well suppressed.