A Review of Researches on Ground-Borne Vibrations Due to Moving Trains via Underground Tunnels

Abstract

Ground-borne vibrations resulting from the railway traffic have become an important environmental issue which has aroused a great deal of public attention. In this paper, a survey of the researches conducted on the problem of vibrations resulting from trains moving in underground tunnels is presented. The major concerns of this paper include the statement of the problem, the evaluation criteria for ground-borne vibrations used by various countries, a review of the state-of-the-art researches using various approaches, and a summary of the isolation methods for reducing the ground-borne vibrations. Only the papers that are readily available to the writers are reviewed herein. It is expected that researches on ground-borne vibrations will continue to grow in the years to come, due to the construction of underground railways in major cities all over the world. There exists a need to develop reliable and efficient techniques suitable for practicing engineers in the simulation of building vibrations caused by trains moving through the tunnels.