Vibration from

Underground Trains
*
Pipe-in-Pipe Software
Hugh Hunt
Cambridge University Engineering Department

www.hughhunt.co.uk
 Common sense will carry one a long way
but no ordinary mortal is endowed with
an inborn instinct for vibrations.
Vibrations are too rapid for our sense of sight
common sense applied to these
phenomena is too common to be other
than a source of danger.
Professor C E Inglis, FRS,
James Forrest Lecture, 1944
 The basis for common sense
Stiffness
k
Frequency = m
Mass
m
Damping ?

k c
Continuous media ?

The mkc model

Vibration from Railways
where is the mass-on-spring?
how do I use my intuition?

Source: Talbot
 Vibration isolation of rail track in tunnels

Floating Slab Track

Source: Tiflex Ltd

Undersleeper pads

Source: Edilon
Novel designs for vibration control

Source: Pandrol Ltd

 Insertion Gain
for
Floating Slab Track

Isolation
frequency
6.3Hz

Insertion gain
(dB)
20
10
0
-10 Floating Slab Track 2
-20
-30
-40
-50 4 5 10 12.5 25 50 100 125 200
Source: GERB
 What is Insertion Gain?

response
m m
T2 T1

k k

kadditional
before insertion
frequency

Insertion Gain
after insertion
T2
T1 0 dB
Amplification at Benefit, typically
new resonance 10 to 20 dB
typically 10dB

frequency
 The Pipe-in-Pipe model
(a) (b)
z
eq
y
er
x ez
z r
q
h
R2 q
a
R1
q

Tunnel: Soil:
thin-walled cylinder thick-walled cylinder
radius R Coupling inner radius R
wall thickness t Discrete Fourier transform outer radius
infinite length around q
infinite length
Continuous Fourier transform
along z
 vertical vibration dB ref mm
(rms)
virtual free surface

isolation
 rms insertion
Insertion Gain gain (dB)

isolation
Acknowledgements: Dr James Forrest
Dr Mohammed Hussein

This is a demonstration of the Pipe-in-Pipe software.
It is freeware and can be obtained by following the
PiP link at www.hughhunt.co.uk
I am hugely indebted to Dr Mohammed Hussein from
the University of Nottingham for his enormous
contribution to the development of PiP software.
When downloading the software you
will need to enter a username and
password. These are available on
request. This is a requirement of
Mathworks (ie MATLAB) to permit
use of the MCR-installer which is a
suite of DLLs needed to run PiP as a
pre-compiled MATLAB executable.
Please be patient when installing and
running PiP for the first time it may
take a few minutes to get started.
Subsequent uses are quick.
 This shows how different by as
much as 5dB - the vibration
levels can be when the material
properties are changed by only
15%. This begins to put into
question the possibility of
-75 prediction accuracy any better
than 10dB.
-80

-85

-90
 This shows how an increase in
the bending stiffness of the
slab leads, in this case, to an
increase in vibration.

-75

-80

-85

-90
 This shows how an
increase in the mass and
-70
bending stiffness of the
slab plus a reduction in the
-75 natural frequency of the
-80
slab from 40Hz to 25Hz
leads to a reduction in
-85 vibration.
-90

-95
 It is convenient to plot
Case2, Case 3 and Case 4 as
Insertion Gains measured
relative to Case 1. These
show clearly where the
changes made lead to
reduction in vibration
(ie IG < 0dB)

0 0dB

-5

- 10
 Here the measurement poin
is shifted from being 20m
directly above the tunnel to
being 20m above and 5m to
one side. Note that the
-70
response is as much as 5dB
-75 different at certain
frequencies. This again put
-80
into question the possibility
-85 of obtaining prediction of
vibration within an accuracy
-90
of better than 10dB.
-95
 The PiP software also
allows the user to plot
-40
contour plots such as these
-50 which illustrate where the
-60 vibration is greatest at
-70
different frequencies. This
can help guide the location
-80
and distribution of piled
foundations.

The PiP software can also

5 include the effect of rigid
- 0
bedrock and the latest
version of PiP (soon to be
- 5 released) includes a free
surface and layered soil.
-10
Validation PiP vs. coupled FEM-BEM

The PiP software is in

excellent agreement
with other models

Source: Mohammed Hussein / Shashank Gupta / Lars Rikse

 Conclusions
The mass-on-spring model is not good for
predicting Insertion Gain

The PiP model is a very fast and convenient tool

for computing vibration from railway tunnels

The use of PiP puts into question the possibility of

obtaining better than 10dB prediction accuracy
from any model no matter how detailed.

PiP is freeware and is easy to use.