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- Beitrag zu einem Tagungsband (66) (entfernen)
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- Ground vibration (11)
- Finite-element boundary-element method (4)
- Layered soil (4)
- Railway track (4)
- Bahnerschütterungen (3)
- Building vibration (3)
- Hammer impact (3)
- Slab track (3)
- Track-soil interaction (3)
- Vibration measurements (3)
- Container loading (2)
- Drop test (2)
- Field tests (2)
- Foundation load (2)
- Layered soils (2)
- Measurement (2)
- Mitigation (2)
- Soil properties (2)
- Soil-building interaction (2)
- Soil-wall-floor model (2)
- Train passage (2)
- Train speed (2)
- Train-induced ground vibration (2)
- Vehicle-track interaction (2)
- Vehicle-track-soil interaction (2)
- 1-D insertion loss (1)
- 2-span bridge (1)
- Achsfolgespektren (1)
- Amplitude-charge weight laws (1)
- Amplitude-distance laws (1)
- Apartment building (1)
- Assessment (1)
- Attenuation (1)
- Axle impulses (1)
- Axle loads (1)
- Axle sequence (1)
- Axle-sequence spectrum (1)
- Ballast track (1)
- Ballast tracks (1)
- Bauteile (1)
- Bauwerke (1)
- Bodendynamik (1)
- Bodeneigenschaften (1)
- Bodenübertragungsfunktion (1)
- Boundary element method (1)
- Bridge resonance (1)
- Bridge track (1)
- Brücken (1)
- Column/wall resonance (1)
- Continuously inhomogeneous soils (1)
- Damping (1)
- Dispersion (1)
- Dispersionsmessung (1)
- Displacements (1)
- Dynamic testing (1)
- Eisenbahnschwingungen (1)
- Elastische Gebäudelagerung (1)
- Elastische Gleiselemente (1)
- Emission (1)
- Erschütterungen (1)
- Erschütterungsausbreitung (1)
- Erschütterungsminderung (1)
- Erschütterungsprognose (1)
- Erschütterungsursachen (1)
- Evaluation (1)
- Excitation forces (1)
- Explicit Green´s functions (1)
- Explosion-induced ground vibrations (1)
- FEBEM and simplified methods (1)
- Filter effects (1)
- Finite element method (1)
- Finite element models (1)
- Floating slab track (1)
- Floor amplification (1)
- Floor resonance (1)
- Force transfer (1)
- Foundation reduction (1)
- Freight train (1)
- Frequenzbereiche (1)
- Gleiströge (1)
- Ground vibration measurements (1)
- Halbraum (1)
- Hammer tests (1)
- High-Rise Building (1)
- High-speed train (1)
- Immission (1)
- Inertial Interaction (1)
- Irregular ballast (1)
- Irregular soil (1)
- Irregularities (1)
- Kinematic Interaction (1)
- Laboratory tests (1)
- Long-span bridge (1)
- MASW (1)
- Measurements (1)
- Mitigation measures (1)
- Modal force spectrum (1)
- Modalanalyse (1)
- Modes (1)
- Nachgiebigkeiten (1)
- Office building (1)
- Office tower (1)
- Passenger train (1)
- Pile Foundation (1)
- Pile bending stiffness (1)
- Pile foundation (1)
- Plate-soil interaction (1)
- Prediction of explosion induced ground and building vibration (1)
- Prognoseverfahren (1)
- Propagation from a tunnel (1)
- Radiation damping (1)
- Railway (1)
- Railway bridge (1)
- Railway induced ground vibration (1)
- Railway tracks (1)
- Railway tunnel (1)
- Railway vibration (1)
- Randomly heterogeneous soil (1)
- Rechenmodelle (1)
- Residential building (1)
- SASW (1)
- SPAC (1)
- Scattering (1)
- Simple prediction (1)
- Soil stiffness (1)
- Soil-building resonance (1)
- Surface Foundation (1)
- Surface line (1)
- Surface-tunnel reduction (1)
- Track compliance (1)
- Track damage (1)
- Track damage monitoring (1)
- Track irregularities (1)
- Track vibration (1)
- Train passages (1)
- Transfer function (1)
- Transmission (1)
- Tunnel (1)
- Tunnel track (1)
- Tunnel vibration (1)
- Tunnel-pile transfer (1)
- Under sleeper pads (1)
- Under-ballast plate (1)
- Varying stiffness (1)
- Verkehrserschütterungen (1)
- Vibration measurement (1)
- Vibration reduction (1)
- Vollraum (1)
- Wave excitation (1)
- Wave velocity (1)
- Wavenumber integrals (1)
- Waves (1)
- Wellenausbreitung in der Tiefe (1)
- Wellengeschwindigkeit (1)
- Wind energy tower (1)
- Windenergieanlagen (1)
- Zerstreute Achsimpulse (1)
- Zuggeschwindigkeit (1)
- floor vibration (1)
- ground vibration (1)
- mitigation (1)
- modal analysis (1)
- railway track (1)
- track-soil interaction (1)
- undersleeper (1)
- wave analysis (1)
Organisationseinheit der BAM
- 7 Bauwerkssicherheit (24)
- 7.2 Ingenieurbau (24)
Messungen bei Fern- und Hochgeschwindigkeitsbahnen aus verschiedenen Ländern (Portugal, Spanien, Belgien, Großbritannien, Deutschland, Schweiz, China, Japan u.a.) sollen die besondere Wichtigkeit eines mittelfrequenten Erschütterungsanteils zeigen. Relativ einheitlich werden dabei drei zusammenhängende Terzen mit angehobenen Amplituden beobachtet. Dieser Erschütterungsanteil dominiert mit zunehmender Entfernung vom Gleis das Frequenzspektrum der Erschütterungen. Die hochfrequenteren Anteile nehmen aufgrund der Materialdämpfung des Bodens stärker ab, die tieffrequenteren Anteile aus der sogenannten Quasistatik, der Vorbeifahrt der statischen Achslasten, verschwinden innerhalb der ersten zehn Meter vom Gleis fast vollständig. Die Frequenzcharakteristik des mittelfrequenten Erschütterungsanteils wird durch die Achsfolge des Zuges bestimmt. Im Terzmaßstab ist die Achsfolge im Drehgestell maßgeblich für die Ausprägung von zwei Amplitudenminima, die den Frequenzbereich eingrenzen. Diese Achsfolgespektren sind auch bei Brückenschwingungen von Bedeutung. Sie können die schwächere oder stärkere Anregung einzelner Brückeneigenschwingungen regeln. Die Ursachen der Boden- oder Brückenschwingungen sind mit den Achsfolgespektren noch nicht geklärt. Bei der Brücke und beim Boden können kurzwelligere Gleislagefehler (auch Radunrundheiten 1. Ordnung) Fahrzeugbeschleunigungen und damit dynamische Kräfte auf das Gleis erzeugen. Bei der Brücke ist die diskontinuierliche Auf- und Abfahrt der Achsen ebenfalls eine relevante Anregung, während die Kraftimpulse auf das Gleis, die durch die Achsüberfahrten entstehen, für die Wellenausbreitung im Boden von Bedeutung sind. Heterogene Böden oder Gleise ergeben einen Zerstreuanteil der Achsüberfahrtimpulse. Fallbeispiele mit verschiedenen Böden und verschiedenen Fahrgeschwindigkeiten werden ausgewertet, um die Ursachen und Gesetzmäßigkeiten des mittelfrequenten Erschütterungsanteils zu erkennen.
The damage detection and repair control have become important tasks for ballast and slab tracks. Measurements which compare the damaged and the repaired status of the same track section at different times, or which compare a damaged and an intact track section at the same time, have been successfully performed at some sites in Germany with slab tracks and ballast tracks and compared with the theoretical behaviour of intact and damaged tracks. The loss of contact between the sleeper and the plate, between the plate and the base layer, and some problems with soft or weakened soil have been analysed. The observed results, changes in the time histories of displacements and velocities due to train passages and in the transfer functions (compliances) due to hammer impacts, are encouraging that these measurements can be used to detect track damage. In addition, calculations with the combined finite-element boundary-element method have been used to confirm the conclusions about intact or damaged railway tracks.
Deckenschwingungen stellen in der Regel das größte Problem bei Erschütterungsgutachten dar. In diesem Übersichtsbeitrag werden folgende Aspekte der Deckenschwingungen mit einfachen bis komplexen Rechenmodellen dargestellt.
Die Resonanzanregung der Decken hängt von der Phasenlage der Auflagerschwingungen ab. Der Wellenlauf der anregenden Freifeldbodenschwingungen kann die Resonanzstärke deutlich verringern. - Der Wellenlauf kann bei Pfahl- oder Plattengründungen zu Abminderungen der Freifeldamplituden führen (kinematische Bauwerk-Boden-Wechselwirkung). - Die Steifigkeit des Untergrundes hat einen starken Einfluss auf die Resonanzstärke. Dies hat einerseits mit der Abstrahlungsdämpfung zu tun, andererseits auch mit einer Schwingungstilgung. Die Tilgung kann in einem vereinfachten Wand-Decken-Modell mit einer einheitlichen Deckeneigenfrequenz oder realistischer mit einem Eigenfrequenzband berechnet werden. In einem schmalen Frequenzband vor der Deckeneigenfrequenz können weitere (Wand-) Eigenfrequenzen und nach der Deckeneigenfrequenz eine Frequenzlücke auftreten. Normalerweise nehmen die Deckenamplituden mit der Höhe im Gebäude zu. In der Frequenzlücke hingegen nehmen die Amplituden mit der Höhe ab. - Benachbarte Deckenfelder können gemeinsame Deckeneigenfrequenzen besitzen, vor allem wenn sie die gleichen Abmessungen haben. Man bekommt dann ein Band von Deckeneigenfrequenzen. - Bei einer Schwingungsanregung im Gebäude auf einer Decke schwingen auch die benachbarten Deckenfelder mit. Im Frequenzbereich lassen sich Übertragungsfunktionen darstellen, im Zeitbereich können Amplituden-Abstandsgesetze betrachtet werden. - Bei großen Stützenbauwerken treten häufig Kopplungen der Decken verschiedener Stockwerke auf. - Mit den verschiedenen Methoden lassen sich typische Gesetzmäßigkeiten für die Amplituden und Frequenzen der Deckenschwingungen ableiten.
The computation of the wave propagation in homogeneous and layered soils can be performed by a numerical integration in wavenumber domain. The numerical difficulties of an infinite integral and an integrand with poles can be solved. But if this computation must be repeated for many distances, many frequencies, many loads, or many soil models, it becomes a time consuming task which is not acceptable for a user-friendly prediction tool for railway induced ground vibration. Therefore, an approximate method for the computation of the wave field has been developed. The computation consists of several steps. At first, an approximate dispersion profile is calculated according to rules which have been derived from exact solutions. Secondly, the dispersion is used to achieve the amplitude for a certain frequency and a certain distance by calculating the approximate solution of a corresponding homogeneous half-space. Thirdly, three layer corrections are added which include lowfrequency near-field effects, high-frequency far-field effects, and a resonance amplification around the layer frequency. This procedure yields the wave field due to a point load. For a train load, many of these point-load responses have to be summed up, and a frequencydependant reduction factor has to be multiplied to incorporate the effect of the load distribution along and across the track. - The prediction method is applied to real sites, and the appropriate soil models are identified by approximating the measured transfer functions (frequency-dependant amplitudes) which is presented as an alternative to the approximation of the dispersion (frequency-dependant wave velocities). These examples demonstrate the general behavior of layered soils: the low amplitudes of the stiff half-space at low frequencies, the high amplitudes of the softer layer at high frequencies, the strong increase of amplitudes and a possible resonance amplification at mid frequencies. The material damping of the layer yields a strong attenuation of the amplitudes with the distance for high frequencies. The response depends strongly on the resonance or layer frequency which is shown for different layer depths and velocities always in good agreement with measurements. The layer frequency can be of immense influence if train-speed effects are analysed in a layered soil. The good agreement with many measurements in this contribution as well as in the references validates the prediction of ground vibration based on the theory of a layered half-space.
Explosion-induced ground vibrations have been measured at several places. Results about the wave propagation are shown in this contribution. The particle velocities of the soil have been measured at up to 1000 m distance from the explosion and are presented as time records (seismograms) and one-third octave band spectra (transfer functions). The results are compared with the results of hammer impacts. The seismograms clearly show different wave types, compressional waves of the air, the water and the soil, and the Rayleigh wave. The hammer impacts yield good results up to 100 m and incorporate higher frequencies at about 50 Hz, whereas the explosion results in a ground vibration with frequencies around 10 Hz and a longer range of influence. Explosion and hammer excitations are evaluated for the wave velocities of the soil by using the wavenumber and the spatial auto-correlation method. The attenuation of the ground vibration amplitudes A with distance r can well be presented by a power law A ~ r -q. This type of amplitude-distance law and the corresponding power q > 1 are substantiated in the contribution. The influence of the charge weight W is evaluated as an additional power law A ~ W -p for each measuring site. The power is found quite similarly around q 0.6 as all sites have a medium soft soil such as sand and clay. The obtained amplitude-charge-distance law can be used to predict the explosion-induced ground and building vibrations at other sites.
Die Grundidee einer Schwingungsminderung ist es eine tiefe Eigenfrequenz der Struktur zu erreichen, so dass höhere Frequenzen abgemindert werden. Das gilt für die Minderung an der Quelle, zum Beispiel einem Eisenbahngleis, und für die Minderung am Empfänger, dem Gebäude. Die Eigenfrequenz ermittelt man aus dem Verhältnis der Auflagersteifigkeit und der Masse. Wie ist die Masse bei einem Gebäude zu wählen? Und wie ist die Untergrundsteifigkeit zu berücksichtigen? Als Referenzsituation ohne Minderungsmaßnahme? Der Beitrag bringt Rechenergebnisse zu abgefederten Gebäuden mit einfachen und komplexen (FE-) Modellen, Mess- und Rechenergebnisse zur Schwingungsübertragung von unabgefederten Gebäuden. Es wird der Einfluss der Abstimmfrequenz, der Bodensteifigkeit und der „starren“ Gebäudemasse untersucht. Die komplexen Gebäudemodelle erlauben, neben der Berechnung einer elastischen Gebäudelagerung, auch die Variation von Gebäudeparametern zur Reduktion der Deckenschwingungen. Den Ergebnissen bei der Erschütterungs-übertragung in Gebäude werden zwei ähnliche Beispiele zur elastischen Maschinenlagerung und zur elastischen Gleislagerung gegenübergestellt.
The passage of the train is dominated by the impulses of the static axle loads. The response of the regular homogeneous and irregular soils has been calculated by the finite-element method in frequency domain. The superposition of the impulse responses yields the quasi-static component of the ground vibration which is restricted to very low frequencies and to the close near-field of the track. In case of an irregular soil or ballast of which the stiffness varies randomly in space, a mid-frequency ground vibration component is generated by the scattering of the axle impulses. Measurements will be shown which prove the existence of the mid-frequency ground vibration component and the unique explanation by the scattered axle impulses: many international measurements with a raised mid-frequency component, axle-box measurements with a too low mid-frequency dynamic load, amplitude-speed dependencies which are incompatible with irregularity-induced dynamic loads, and ground vibration reductions due to stiff track elements.
In the last three decades, the vibrations of many floors and bridges have been measured. The contribution shows some evaluation methods, experimental results and some modelling and theoretical results. Simple evaluation methods have been developed for single and coupled floors. Two coupled beams have been measured in good agreement with the theory. A more complex coupling model has been found for a large wooden floor in a castle consisting of six floor bays which correlates well with the measurements. Damaged and intact poles have been tested by their natural frequencies and damping values, and a fair correlation between the degree of damage and the shift of the frequency. Road bridges have been analysed in detail and some examples are presented. Railway bridges and trains are studied for resonant excitation. The risk of resonance can be estimated in frequency domain by using axle-sequence spectra of the train and the natural frequencies of the bridge. A measurement example shows the amplification, but even stronger the cancellation of the subsequent axle responses. Several high-speed trains and freight trains have been analysed for their potential resonance amplification.
Train passages induce static and dynamic forces on the track, the train-induced vibrations propagate through the soil and excite neighbouring buildings. The problem of train vibrations is divided into the parts emission, which is the excitation by railway traffic (the present contribution), transmission, which is the wave propagation through the soil, and immission, which is the transfer into a building, - The calculation of the axle loads are based on the vehicle-track-soil interaction. This interaction uses the dynamic stiffness of the vehicle (the inertia of the wheelset) and the dynamic stiffness of the track-soil System. Based on various time consuming finite-element boundary-element calculations, an approximate track-soil model has been established. The vehicle-track-soil analysis yields several transfer functions between the various geometric or stiffness irregularities and the axle loads of the train. Geometric irregularities of the vehicle (the wheels) and the track (rail surface and track alignment) are the simplest components. Geometric irregularities of the subsoil (trackbed irregularities) have to be transferred to effective irregularities at rail level. The bending stiffness of the track is filtering out the short-wavelength contribution. Stiffness irregularities occur due to random variations in the bailast or the subsoil, which must also be transferred to effective track irregularities, and due to the discrete rail support on sleepers. The axle loads due to the effective track errors from stiffness variations have their specific vehicle-track transfer function. - All necessary formula for the prediction of axle-load spectra will be presented. The prediction method is compared with axle-box measurements at a Standard ballasted track. Moreover, ground Vibration measurements at numerous sites are exploited for the axle-load spectra and the Validation of the prediction method.
An drei Straßenbrücken unterschiedlicher Länge und Bauart wurden vor Inbetriebnahme ambiente Schwingungsmessungen mit bis zu 350 Messpunkten durchgeführt, um auch höhere Eigenformen detaillierter zu ermitteln. An einer Eisenbahnbrücke der Strecke Hannover-Würzburg wurden bei Testzugfahrten mit definierten Geschwindigkeiten verschiedene Resonanzanregungen beobachtet. Dies wird mit dem Achsfolgespektrum des ganzen Zuges erklärt, wobei eher spezifische Frequenzauslöschungen als Resonanzanregungen maßgeblich sind.
Vibration of normal apartment, office and production buildings, which are excited by technically induced ground vibrations are considered. Many wavelengths of the Rayleigh waves of the soil fit into the foundation dimensions. The related high discretization effort can nowadays be realized with detailed soil-structure interaction method. The combined finite-element boundary-element method is used here as a detatiled method. Simplified method can be used with less computation time, but these methods must be calibrated by exact results. One simplification is to extent the structure to infinity and to solve the problem by wavenumber domain methods. Another simplification is the use of a Winkler soil instead of the continuous soil. Usually, the Winkler parameters are not only soil parameters but depend also on the rigid or flexible foundation structure. Substructure methods use commercial FEM software for the building part. The contribution will show some detailed and some simplified results on large structural elements such as foundation plates, walls, storey plates on columns as well as results on complete buildings. The reduction of the ground vibration by stiff elements and the amplification due to floor or building resonances are discussed which are the most important phenomena of the soil-building interaction.
A variety of isolation measures exists to reduce the vibration in the neighbourhood of railway lines. They can be roughly classified as elastic or stiffening systems. There are the following elastic elements, rail pads or resilient fixation systems between rail and sleeper, under sleeper pads or sleeper shoes under the sleepers, and ballast mats under the ballast. Stiffening systems (plates) are used as slab tracks, floating slab tracks, or mass-spring systems. In the EU project “Railway induced vibration abatement solutions (RIVAS)”, elastic under sleeper pads have been investigated. The dynamic behaviour of the track and the surrounding soil has been calculated by the combined finite-element boundary-element method in a systematic parameter study. It has been shown that the mitigation effect can be improved by soft under sleeper pads or by heavy sleepers. Consequently, such track elements (soft under sleeper pads and heavy sleepers) have been thoroughly investigated in laboratory tests to establish the static and dynamic parameters as well as their serviceability. Finally, field tests at and near railway tracks with and without under sleeper pads have been performed. To determine the reduction effect of the isolated track, the ground vibrations excited by trains or artificial sources have been measured. The soil properties at the different sites have also been measured so that the comparison of the isolated and un-isolated track can take into account possible differences of the soil parameters. The contribution shows how the different (numerical, laboratory and field) methods and results can be combined to achieve an improved mitigation solution with soft under sleeper pads and heavy sleepers for ballasted and slab tracks.
Measured train passages and hammer impacts in combination with track-soil calculation have been successfully used for the detection of damaged slab tracks. This approach is now extended to intact slab and ballast tracks. The vibrations of many tracks have been measured at several levels from rail, sleeper, track plate, base plate, base layer to the subsoil by velocity or acceleration sensors. The time histories have to be integrated once or twice to get the displacements. The displacement signals include an arbitrary time-dependent shift which must be eliminated or respected in the interpretation. On the other hand, the calculation of slab and ballast tracks have been done in frequency-wavenumber domain. The displacements along the track and the frequency-dependent compliance transfer functions can be calculated. The latter can be compared with the results of the hammer impacts on the track. The deformation of the track can be transformed to time histories for a whole train and compared to the measured train passages. Many slab (and ballast) tracks have been measured at different sites. The displacements of the tracks are presented, and the following parameters have been analysed in the measurement results: slab track vs. ballast track, different types of slab tracks, damaged slab tracks, different trains, switches at different measuring points, an elastic layer, the mortar layer, different soils at different places. The soil should have the dominant influence on the track-plate displacements. Slab and ballast track yield also big differences in maximum displacement and width of deformation. Some of the preceding aspects will be analysed in comparison of measurement and theory.
Abstract. Three measurement campaigns of train-induced ground vibrations are evaluated for the vehicle-track-soil interaction. Ground vibrations, track vibrations and vehicle vibrations have been measured for train passages and impulse excitation and compared with theoretical results.
The soil and the track-soil system are calculated by wavenumber integrals. The influence of the vehicle is introduced by a substructure method. By comparing theory and measurement the different components of excitation force and ground vibration can be analysed, the quasi-static excitation, track-alignment errors, the out-of-roundness of wheels, the wheel and rail roughness, and moreover, scattered axle impulses and ineffective high-frequency parts of the wheelset accelerations and forces.
The present contribution evaluates four measuring series made by the Federal Institute of Material Research and Testing for the relations between train speed and ground vibration amplitudes. This experimental evaluation is supported by the simulation of the train passages at the different sites by using appropriate excitation mechanisms and forces as well as layered soil models which have been derived from impact measurements at each site.
Die Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung hat in den letzten 30 Jahren an vielen Orten Bahnerschütterungen gemessen. Dabei wurden immer auch Versuche zur Bestimmung der Bodeneigen-schaften durchgeführt, meist mit Hammeranregung, gelegentlich auch mit Schwingeranregung. Es werden verschiedene Auswertemethoden wie Seismogramm-Montage, Spektrale Analyse (SASW), Multistation Analysis of Surface Waves (MASW), f,v-Analyse (Dispersion aus zweifacher Fourier-Analyse), Spatial AutoCorrelation (SPAC, hier auch für deterministische Quellen) vorgestellt. Durch Approximation der frequenzabhängigen Wellengeschwindigkeiten (Dispersion) oder der gemessenen Übertragungsfunktionen erhält man ein passendes Bodenmodell. Zu diesem Bodenmodell kann man dann die Übertragungsfunktionen für Hammer- und Zuganregung berechnen. Mit allgemeinen oder spezifischen Achslastspektren werden dann die Bahnerschütterungen prognostiziert und mit den Messergebnissen verglichen. Bei etlichen Messorten, insbesondere in der Schweiz, wurden deutliche Merkmale einer Bodenschichtung beobachtet. Es ergibt sich eine deutliche Reduktion der tiefen Frequenzanteile durch den steifen unterliegenden Halbraum. Die weiche Deckschicht bestimmt das hochfrequente Verhalten. Hier bewirkt die Materialdämpfung des Bodens oft einen starken Amplitudenabfall, sowohl mit der Entfernung als auch mit der Frequenz. Für den verbleibenden mittelfrequenten Anteil wurde an mehreren Messorten die Amplituden-Fahrgeschwindigkeits-Gesetzmäßigkeiten untersucht. Es gibt konstante bis stark ansteigende Amplituden, und es zeigt sich auch hier, dass der geschichtete Boden von entscheidender Bedeutung ist.
A study on building vibrations has been performed by finite element calculations. Family houses, multi-storey residential buildings, office buildings and office towers have been modelled in detail. The frequency-dependent response due to a free-field excitation has been evaluated for walls, columns and floors. The ratio of building amplitudes to free-field amplitudes starts with uB/u0 = 1 at zero frequency and is usually lower than 1 at 50 Hz, the end of the frequency range considered here. In between, amplifications occur due to several reasons. There are „soil resonances“ where the whole building is vibrating on the compliant soil, “column resonances” where the upper storeys are vibrating on the compliant columns, and the “floor resonances” where the floors are vibrating excited by their supports. Results are presented for all building types, but a special focus is set on office buildings. A parameter study shows the influence of the stiffness of the soil, the number of storeys, and the width of the building. It has been found that the “soil resonance” is strongly modified by the low-frequency floor resonances for the normal office building. The main resonance of a twenty-storey office tower is determined equally by the “soil mode” and the “column mode”. It is an important observation for these office buildings that the resonances can differ for different parts of the building such as the centre, the edge, the corner, and the core of the building. This leads to non-uniform vibration modes across the building, which look like another type of “floor resonance” and which have been observed in several real building projects. Experimental results will be shown which can confirm the calculated phenomena.
Offshore wind energy towers are dynamically loaded by waves and wind. Pile foundations provide stiffness and damping and should be properly calculated. A combined finite-element boundary-element method for the dynamic interaction of flexible structures and the soil has been developed. The flexible structures such as single piles or complete wind energy towers are modeled by the finite element method whereas the homogeneous or layered soil is modeled by the boundary element method which uses the Green’s functions for interior loads in the layered half-space to establish the dynamic stiffness matrix of the soil. Soils with a stiffness that is continuously increasing with depth can be modeled as multi-layer soils with step-wise increasing stiffness. The effects of different parameters such as the stiffness of the soil, the axial and bending stiffness of the pile, and the radius of the cylindrical contact area will be analysed for the different components of excitation (vertical, horizontal, rotation and coupling). The results can be determined as specific power laws which are different for the different load cases and for the different soil models (Winkler support, homogeneous continuum, continuum with increasing stiffness). The dynamic effect of radiation damping will be analysed by the frequency-dependent compliance functions. A clear layering of the soil can cause noticeable changes in the dynamic compliances as reductions of the stiffness and the damping in certain frequency ranges (below and around layer resonance frequencies). The distribution of the displacements along the pile help to explain the observed laws. An example of an offshore wind energy tower has been modeled and calculated for wind, wave and weight loads. The resonances of the tower are usually limited by the radiation damping which is strongest for a soft soil.
The Federal Institute of Material Research and Testing (BAM) has collected some experience with the testing of damaged, repaired and newly constructed railway tracks. The experimental methods are hammer testing of the track at different positions, hammer testing of the soil, measurement of train passages, and in all cases, measurements with geophones at different positions. The measured signals are evaluated for wave velocities (dispersion of the soil or the track-soil system), for transfer functions (transfer admittances of the soil, compliances of the track in amplitude and phase), and one-third octave band spectra of the track response to hammer and train excitation. These methods are applied at different stages of the track construction. Before track construction, wave velocities and transfer functions of the sub-soil can indicate problems with soft soils. After track construction, a check of the acceptable state of the track can be done by comparison of many excitation positions and track sites. After a track damage (a lose sleeper or a lose plate of a slab track) and after its repair, the sensitivity of the different measurement quantities to different track errors and the achieved improvement of the repair can be determined. The contribution shows examples of all these track situations.
Experiments have been performed at a test site with six different tracks with under-ballast plates. Hammer excitations of the soil and the tracks as well as train passages have been measured. The experimental observations are as follows. 1. The natural soil is stiff gravel whereas the railway dam consists of softer material. 2. The track compliance indicates a soft ballast if no train is present to provide a confining pressure. 3. The track response to the train passages can be split into a low-frequency region which is ruled by the static loads and a high-frequency region which is ruled by dynamic loads. 4. The track responses to hammer and track excitation indicate the presence of many voids between the sleepers and the ballast. 5. The ground vibrations are highly influenced by the soil. Due to the stiff soil at the site, the hammer and train induced spectra have a considerable high-frequency content. 6. A reduction of the ground vibration has been observed in a low-frequency range. The mitigation effects of an under-ballast plate are also investigated by calculations of a wavenumber domain model. The under-ballast plate has an effect at low frequencies where it distributes the static load over a longer track section. The impulse of the axle passage is longer and the frequencies are lower due to the plate stiffness. The axle impulses could yield a low-frequency ground vibration in an irregular soil with a randomly varying stiffness. This low-frequency part of the ground vibration (the scattered axle impulses) seem to be reduced by the under-ballast plate.