On a coupling between the Finite Element (FE) and the Wave Finite Element (WFE) method to study the effect of a local heterogeneity within a railway track

The goal of this paper is to compute the dynamic response of an infinite railway track including a heterogeneous part. This zone is made of supports whose stiffness is different from the ones in the homogeneous part. To compute the dynamic response of the track, an extended Finite Element (FE) - Wave Finite Element (WFE) coupling method is proposed. It consists in dividing the heterogeneous part into several FE different supports linked with internal WFE wave-guides. This part is then coupled with semi-infinite WFE wave-guides. The proposed method is validated with experimental data of a track on uniform supports. Then, the dynamic response of the track with different supports is computed. Finally, the performances of an anti-vibration support is evaluated and discussed in terms of the drive point mobility and the track decay rates.