WHEEL RAIL NOISE GENERATION .1. INTRODUCTION AND INTERACTION-MODEL

In this, the first of a series of papers on wheel-rail noise generation, a survey of relevant literature is first presented. The cause of wheel-rail noise is generally thought to be wheel and rail structural vibrations excited by a combination of the wheel and rail surface roughnesses. A detailed model of the noise generation process is then developed, which is based on the excitation by the roughness, which forms a relative displacement input at the wheel-rail interface. While not new in concept, this model is presented in a much more general form than previously, readily allowing alternative excitation mechanisms to be considered alongside the conventional mechanism. The model requires representations of the wheel and rail frequency response functions (receptances), as well as those of the contact zone between them. These are presented in later papers in this series. © 1993 Academic Press Limited.