• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.175-182
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• 2013

Rolling noise is an important source of noise from railways; it is caused by wheel and rail vibrations induced by acoustic roughness at the wheel/rail contact. To reduce rolling noise, it is necessary to have a reliable prediction model that can be used to investigate the effects of various parameters related to the rolling noise. This paper deals with modeling rolling noise from wheel and rail vibrations. In this study, the track is modeled as a discretely supported beam by regarding concrete slab tracks, and the wheel vibration is simulated by using the finite element method. The vertical and lateral wheel/rail contact forces are modeled using the linearized Hertzian contact theory, and then the vibration responses of the wheel and rail are calculated to predict the radiated noise. To validate the proposed model, a field measurement was carried out for a test vehicle. It was found that the predicted result agrees well with the measured one, showing similar behavior in the frequency range between 200 and 4000 Hz where the rolling noise is prominent.