The Dynamic Response of Railway Track to High Frequency Vertical Excitation

Two new dynamic models of railway track are presented, one continuous and the other incorporating the discrete mass of the sleepers. These models include the effect of the railpads which exist between rail and sleeper on modern track, and are used to calculate both the response of the track alone and the contact force between a moving wheel and the rail. There is good agreement between calculation and experiment in the frequency range from 50 to 1500 Hz, and it is shown that the railpad is of fundamental importance in attenuating dynamic loads in this frequency range.