UIC TTI – Seminar on Acoustics and Vibrations

Turning ERRAC (European Rail Research Advisory Council) Noise Roadmap into research projects

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Noise and vibration are very important concerns for the sustainability and the competitiveness of the European railway system. In its latest release, the ERRAC Roadmap points out the research priorities on railway noise towards 2030, which have been agreed and selected by a wide set of stakeholders including railway operators, infrastructure managers, manufacturing industry, engineering activities and academic research.

On 10 April 2013, within the framework the Train Track Interaction Sector activities, UIC organised an international Seminar on Acoustics and Vibration, bringing together 38 experts from 28 companies, organisations and laboratories from France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Austria and the Czech Republic.

Revolving around four thematic workshops introduced by high-level keynote addresses, the seminar made it possible for the experts to draw up an inventory of some current concerns, issues and challenges regarding railway-originated noise and vibrations. Following a general introduction on the ERRAC Noise Roadmap by Pierre-Etienne Gautier, Innovation Director of Systra and Chairman of the UIC Train Track Interaction Sector, the experts were invited to brainstorm on the four following topics:

Rolling Noise revisited, curve squeal and transient noise, introduced by David Thompson (Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton, UK) who gave an extensive presentation of the wheel/rail contact mechanisms at the origin of rolling noise and vibrations,
Tonal noise, indicators beyond db(A) and perception, introduced by Sabine Meunier (Laboratoire de Mécanique et d’Acoustique CNRS de Marseille, France) who presented the relationships between noise annoyance, psycho-acoustical parameters and physical indicators,
Ground borne vibrations, with a state-of-art presentation of the generation mechanisms of vibrations and their mitigation measures, by Bernd Asmussen (Deutsche Bahn/UIC, Germany) coordinator of the EU-funded RIVAS project,
System Approach, introduced by Franck Poisson (SNCF, Innovation & Research, France) who put the above themes in a global perspective and underlined the impact of combined dedicated mitigation measures on the global acoustic and operational performance of the railway system.

UIC wishes to thank the speakers for their essential contribution to the success of this day, as well as all the participating experts.

The presentations of the keynotes speakers are free to download below: