Sub-structuring approach of the prediction of building vibrations induced by railway traffic

This paper presents a sub-structuring approach to predict the building vibrations generated by railway traffic. The three-dimensional building is simulated by rectangular plates supported by a distribution ofcolumns and is modelled by the dynamic stiffness method. The building model is coupled with the layered half-space by using the continuity condition. The building vibrations generated by surface railways and underground railways are examined by two case studies. In the two cases, the analytical models are applied to calculate the incident wave field generated by railway traffic. The proposed method shows sufficient efficiency, making it suitable for performing many types of parametric studies and large-scale vibration predictions. It is found that the building vibration levels decrease as the distance from the building to the railway line increases, which is induced by the attenuation of the waves due to geometrical spreading in the soil. The floating slab can significantly reduce the building vibration levels starting from its cut-off frequency.