In recent years, social demands to reduce railway noise are becoming increasingly critical. But there are no countermeasures that have obvious effects on wheel/rail noise, which is supposed to be a main factor of railway noise on narrow gauge lines. Therefore, we focus on rail surface roughness which is thought to influence wheel/rail noise most strongly and analyze the correlation between these tow factors. Based on this analysis, we discuss a rail toughness control method to reduce wheel/rail noise adequately and propose a rail roughness control method to use axle box acceleration and underfloor noise.

Copyright (c) 2002 Railway Technical Research Institute