Modelling the effect of rail dampers on wheel–rail interaction forces and rail roughness growth rates

Abstract Trains generate rolling noise because of the roughness of the wheel and rail running surfaces. Special acoustic grinding programmes have been introduced on some railways specifically to control rolling noise. Rail dampers are also used to reduce rolling noise; this paper studies rail damping as a possible mechanism to slow the rate of development of roughness on the surface of rails. This would reduce noise further over time or reduce the required frequency of grinding. High roughness growth on the rail occurs in situations with stiff vertical structural dynamics of the track. In particular the antiresonance above a sleeper at the pinned–pinned frequency has been identified as a wavelength fixing mechanism for short pitch corrugation. Rail dampers change the dynamic response of the rail, shifting the pinned–pinned frequency and smoothing the track receptance. Here, a simple time-stepping model is applied to calculate the interaction forces between wheel and rail for a track with and without rail dampers. The calculations show that rail dampers reduce dynamic interaction forces and shift the force spectrum to longer wavelengths. The interaction forces are used as input to an abrasive wear model to predict the roughness growth rate and the change in roughness after many wheel passages. Track without rail dampers is predicted to develop corrugation at the wavelength corresponding to the pinned–pinned frequency. With rail dampers the corrugation growth is reduced and shifted to a longer wavelength where its significance is diminished.