Recent advances on research into high-speed railway noise

Abstract Around 42,000 km high-speed railways are in operation in China with a maximum speed of 350 km/h. Trains which can run at 400 km/h are also under development. To control both train pass-by and train interior noise, huge resources have been put into research on high-speed railway noise, and the authors of this paper and their teams have been involved in several key projects. This paper is to summarise some of the advances achieved in these projects by covering the following topics: measurement results and characteristics of high-speed railway pass-by noise; analyses on source contribution to pass-by noise based on microphone array measurement; modelling of high-speed rolling, aerodynamic, and viaduct bridge noise; prediction of the vibro-acoustic behaviour of car-body with poro-elastic media; analyses of vibration transmission in the suspension/bogie system; statistical energy analysis-based prediction of train interior noise. Open problems and potential technologies for controlling high-speed railway noise are also discussed.