A tuned damping device for reducing noise from railway track

A promising means to reduce the component of railway rolling noise radiated by the track is to increase the damping of the rail. This increases the attenuation with distance of vibrations transmitted along the rail and thereby reduces the noise radiated. To achieve this, a tuned, damped mass-spring absorber system has been designed. To cover a wide range of frequencies, multiple tuning frequencies are used along with a material with a high damping loss factor. Suitable materials have been found from extensive tests on samples and prototypes of the damper have been built and tested, both in the laboratory and in the field. Results are very promising with reductions of the track component of noise of around 6 dB being measured.