Study on the influence of damping plates on structural vibration and radiation characteristics of the railway box girder

Abstract

The influence of damping plates on structural vibration, noise and the contribution of the box girder bridge panels was analysed using the model test and numerical calculation methods. In this paper, a 1/10 scale box girder model test system was designed and constructed using a simply supported 32 m box girder from the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway as a prototype, and damping plates were laid on the box girder web side after the model was verified as being similar to the prototype by means of a series of model tests. The effects of the damping plates on the reduction of the structural vibration and noise were evaluated according to scaled model acoustic tests. In addition, the influence of the damping plates on the sound contribution of the panel was analysed based on the transient boundary element method. The study shows that the damping plates had an obvious vibration reducing effect on the concrete box girder, though their noise reduction properties were less than ideal. The vibration level reduction and time–history noise level reduction were kept within 10.2–29.5 dB and around 1.0 dB (A), respectively. The noise would decrease to its lowest value at 250 Hz – down to 4.0 dB. The damping plates were helpful in effectively reducing the sound power contribution and the sound pressure contribution of the concrete panel. At the peak frequencies of 17 Hz and 251 Hz, the sound power contributions of the panel on the damper side were reduced by 3.4 dB and 3.7 dB, respectively, compared with the normal side, while the sound pressure contributions on the panel decreased by 4.9 dB and 4.2 dB, respectively.