World Multidisciplinary Civil Engineering-Architecture-Urban Planning Symposium 2016,
WMCAUS 2016

Effect of different solutions of damping railway vibrations on their
sensibility by man

Abstract
Buildings located near the railway tracks are often exposed to the harmful effects of vibration caused by trains. Effects of vibrations
on the human body can be minimized by various activities including:

• influence on the source of vibration by changing the rolling stock or speed of a moving train,
•  changing the path of vibration propagation by changing the characteristics of the material, in which the waves transfer or
  mounting so called antivibrating screen on the way of vibration propagation,
• changing characteristics of the vibration receiver.

Due to the renovation of the track and necessity to reduce pollution (in accordance with Polish standards and EU Directive’s)
defined by vibrations generated by passing trains, investor was forced to ensure building safety and comfort of people living in
nearby buildings.
The paper presents proposals for reducing vibrations using special anti vibration screen placed on the wave propagation way. The
structure of the anti vibration screen consists a concrete matrix (thickness of 25 cm) with vibroisolating material (thickness of 5
cm) adhered on the surface. With a large database of extortion, author could recreate it in a good way. It should be noted that the
kinematic signals were recorded for trains similar to the expected in the future on the modernized railway line. The database also
includes kinematic excitations on the analyzed line before its renovation. Analyzing the responses presented in the form of
acceleration of the soil showed that mounting in the ground described anti vibration screen brings unsatisfactory results. Large
decreases of the excitation amplitudes are observed just behind the screen (up to 90% for vibrations in the vertical direction and
80% for vibrations in the horizontal direction), but there are areas (about 1.5 height of the screen) where we have to deal with the
strengthening of extortion. It can be concluded, that in order to protect objects using screens, it should be located as close as possible
to analyzed building. However, the described solution cannot be completely disqualified. In case of the analyzed building almost
40% increase in vertical vibration and several percent increase in horizontal oscillation but at a point located at a considerable