ABSTRACT
A theoretical study of the train induced vibrations to the nearby soil surface is presented. A practical case of railway embankment that includes four existing tracks and a proposed new fifth one at Berlin, Germany is investigated. The analysis is performed utilizing a coupled Boundary Element – Finite Element (BE-FE) method. An impulsive type unit load as well as a harmonic sinusoidal type load is applied on each track, separately. The obtained results show that the proposed new fifth track causes the highest surface response and the surface displacements exhibit large differences in phase and amplitude. Moreover, the resonance at the embankment fundamental frequency strongly amplifies the surface response. The existence of a vertical wall at the right side of the embankment results in strong amplification of the surface response at the right side. On the other hand, the inclined left edge gives longer wave path inside the soil leading to relatively low surface response.
