Housing development near a railway tunnel: Mitigating vibration and induced noise by tweaking foundation design
conference paper
Vibration insulation of buildings is often achieved by introducing springs in the foundation. It can be a very effective measure, especially against vibration induced noise, but also a very costly one. There is a need for less costly measures which, although less effective, may achieve the required vibration reduction. For a specific case such measures have been developed and are being applied. This case is a large new housing development around a tunnel in the new Dutch dedicated freight track from the Rotterdam harbour to Germany. This 'new-new' situation posed an extra challenge: houses were designed while it was still unknown to what extent trains would give rise to vibration and induced noise. Because predictions of floor vibration and vibration induced noise in buildings showed that low frequency noise might be perceived in buildings close to the tunnel, it was necessary to consider vibration mitigation measures. The performance of several measures for a number of different building designs was therefore evaluated and assessed. This study has led to the formulation of several "low-impact" measures, which consisted mainly in modifications of the foundation layout and size of foundation elements, achieving vibration performance improvements between 3 and 6 dB. Tests on one of the applied measures have demonstrated the feasibility of this approach.
Topics
Building designEffective measuresFloor vibrationsFoundation designFreight tracksGermanyHousing developmentIn-buildingsInduced noiseLow-Frequency NoisePerformance improvementsRailway tunnelsRotterdamVibration insulationVibration mitigationVibration reductionsAcoustic variables controlHousingFoundations
TNO Identifier
463764
ISBN
9781615676804
Source title
8th European Conference on Noise Control 2009, EURONOISE 2009, 26 October 2009 through 28 October 2009, Edinburgh
Pages
1-8
Files
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