Study on the Mechanism of Train Noise and its Countermeasure : Part I; Characteristics of Wheel Vibration

Recently, train noise has become a great social problem. One of its main causes has been reported to be the vibration of the wheels, but only a few studies in this area have been reported. The authors made a wheel noise and vibration testing machine which had two wheels simulating the train wheel and the rail. The relationship between the noise and the vibration was studied, and the following results were obtained. 1) The noise is caused by wheel axial vibration. 2) Wheel axial vibration can be theoretically modeled by the vibration of a circular plate with the boundary conditions that the inside circumference (axis) is fixed, the outside is free and one point on it is simply supported.