REDUCING ROLLING NOISE IN RAILWAY WHEELS WITH CONSTRAINED LAYER DAMPING TREATMENTS CONSIDERING COMPREHENSIVE VISCOELASTIC MODELS

Paper in proceeding, 2023

In this work, the reduction of radiated sound power of a railway wheel incorporating a constrained layer damping treatment is modelled and studied in detail. Such vibration control mechanism consists of an arrangement of a viscoelastic material between a constraining layer and the wheel web, and has been proven as an effective method of reducing rolling noise. The modelling of these devices presents many challenges due to the non-linear and frequency-dependent nature of the viscoelastic material behaviour, as well as the interaction between the wheel and the different layers of material. Thus, the model developed in the present work considers the viscoelastic behaviour of the polymer through a number of material models that include the frequency dependence of the main properties, such as the Burgers and Zener approaches. The variation of radiated rolling noise for a wheel with different configurations of constrained layer damping is later compared, analysing their suitability for minimising sound radiation.