Abatement of railway induced vibrations: Numerical comparison of trench solutions

This paper studies the efficiency of trenches constructed alongside a railway track as mitigation measures for vibrations induced by moving trains. A two-and-a-half-dimensional coupled boundary element–finite element methodology (2.5D BEM-FEM) is used, and the BEM is nurtured with fundamental solutions obtained through the thin-layer method. The procedure for the calculation of the fundamental solutions represents the main difference between this approach and similar methodologies used in the previous works.The conditions at an existing and operational stretch of the Portuguese Railway Network are assumed as the scenario for the investigations in which the behaviors of open, concrete filled and geofoam filled trenches are analyzed for the passage of an Alfa Pendular train.