Effect of Rotation on Sound Radiation of a Train Wheel with or without Damping Treatment

As a wheel travels along the rail, the wheel-rail force moves along the wheel’s periphery at the train speed, generating wheel vibration which is complicated by the moving load effect along with the gyroscopic and centrifugal effects caused by rotation. To accurately predict sound radiation of a wheel in rotation, all the rotation effects mentioned above should be considered. In this paper, the Fourier finite and boundary element methods are employed to predict vibration and sound radiation of 9 high-speed train wheels of the same design but with different damping treatments (including a bare wheel without any damping treatment as reference. In total there are 10 wheels for study). Comparison is made for the 10 wheels in the overall A-weighted sound power levels between two conditions, i.e., whether or not rotation is considered. The damped wheel which produces lowest noise can be determined. Finally, three damped wheels are chosen for further analysis, aiming to work out the contributions of energy dissipation and receptance change to the achieved noise reduction.