Redesign of Railway Carriages to Reduce Noise due to the Collision of Wheels with Rails using “Noise Housing”

Abstract

Trains are one of the main forms of mass transportation that have proven to be a mainstay of public transportation in developed (England, Germany, the USA, Japan, etc.) and developing countries. Based on the results of an initial survey of 30 respondents who live near railway crossings in Indonesia, 70% reported disturbances, including hearing impairment, compared to residents farther from the crossings. This paper aims to redesign train carriages by using a bogie cover (Noise Housing) to reduce noise impact on passengers and residents around train crossings. An initial survey of traffic noise among the public/passengers and literature studies related to ride design and operations have been conducted. A Computational Aeroacoustics (CAA) far-field noise simulation was carried out to compare the noise generated by the collision of train wheels with the train tracks for existing designs and designs with the addition of Noise Housing at varying measurement distances of 3 m, 5 m, 8 m, and 15 m. The initial Noise Housing design using fiber material can reduce noise on average by 19.02 dB. Based on aerodynamic performance testing using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations, it appears that Noise Housing can also significantly reduce aerodynamic drag. It can be concluded that adding Noise Housing can reduce the impact of noise due to train wheel collisions and improve the train’s aerodynamic performance.