Effect of rail corrugation on metro interior noise and its control

Rail corrugation is very common in metro systems, and serious noise problems produced by rail corrugation, especially short-wavelength corrugations (25-50 mm), are a common cause of passenger complaints. For metro trains, the wheel-rail interface is the main source of noise, and the wheel-rail roughness, especially in the presence of rail corrugation, is the main excitation source. Rail grinding is a fast, economical, and effective control measure for reducing vibration and noise. However, the existing grinding cycle is not sufficient to meet the requirements of interior noise. There is no rail grinding standard based on interior noise limits for metro trains running on slab tracks in tunnels, which covers the vast majority of situations in China. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand the effects of rail corrugation on interior noise for metro trains running on slab tracks in tunnels. At the same time, a rail grinding standard based on interior noise limits for such metro trains is very important. In this paper, the characteristics of the serious noise problems caused by rail corrugation are identified and suitable rail grinding controls based on noise limits are presented.