On the feasibility of a component-based approach to predict aerodynamic noise from high-speed train bogies

Abstract

At speeds above 300 km/h, aerodynamic noise becomes a significant source of railway noise. In a high-speed train, the bogie area is one of the most important aerodynamic noise sources. To predict aerodynamic noise, semi-empirical component-based models are attractive as they allow fast and cheap calculations compared with numerical methods. Such component-based models have been previously applied successfully to predict the aerodynamic noise from train pantographs which consist of various cylinders. In this work, the feasibility is evaluated of applying them to the aerodynamic noise from bogies, which consist of various bluff bodies. To this end, noise measurements were carried out in an anechoic wind tunnel for different flow speeds using simple shapes representing various idealised components of a bogie. These results have been used to adjust the empirical constants of the component-based prediction model to enable its application to the bogie case. In addition, the noise from a 1:10 scale simplified bogie mock-up was measured and used for comparison with the prediction model. The results show good agreement between measurements and predictions for the bogie alone. When the bogie is located between two ramps approximating a simplified bogie cavity the noise is underpredicted at low frequencies. This is attributed to the noise from the cavity which is not included in the model.