The Analysis and Experimental Study on the Wheel Absorber for Reduction of Noise Emission during the Train Operation

철도차량의 운행 중 소음 저감을 위한 휠업소버의 해석 및 실험적 고찰

The noise to be considered as the most important in railway systems is the noise generated from the wheel/rail interaction. Such noise can be divided into three categories; that is, the rolling noise, the squeal noise and the wheel howling noise. Especially in metro systems, this type of noise has been considered seriously in recent years, and the diversified studies on the mechanism and solutions of such noise are in progress by many railways and researching bodies. In this study, a specially designed wheel absorber is installed in the wheel, and FEM analysis and laboratory tests are executed for the two cases, i.e. with wheel absorber and without wheel absorber, to check the effect of the wheel absorber in noise reduction. For the FEM analysis, the frequency response functions for respective cases are compared. And, for the laboratory test, following four cases are tested and compared; that is, i) with wheel only, ii) installation of ring damper only, iii) installation of damping material and cover, iv) installation of complete absorber system.