Environmental noise beside an elevated box girder bridge for urban rail transit

Noise generated by trains running on elevated lines creates many disturbances to the normal lives of surrounding residents. Investigations have shown that people living along elevated lines complain that the noise is sometimes unbearable. To better control the noise and optimize the acoustic environment, noise spectrum characteristics were analyzed and compared with a field test and a numerical simulation. Through an energy analysis of the noise on the bridge side, the energy distribution characteristics of the noise at specific measuring points in different frequency bands were obtained. The influence of the Doppler effect on frequency shift was analyzed. Based on the partial coherence theory, a multi-input and single-output program was compiled to calculate the correlation and contribution degree of the bridge structure-borne noise and wheel/rail noise at the one-third octave center frequency. The results show that the peak noises of the bridge and the wheel/rail are concentrated at 31.5–63 Hz and 400–800 Hz, respectively. For environmental noise on the bridge side, the frequency band above 250 Hz is mainly affected by the wheel/rail noise. In areas of noise source strength, the relative ratio of noise energy above 250 Hz can reach 83.4%. Noise in the near ground and far bridge area is mainly low-frequency, and the relative energy ratio is about 8.9%. The Doppler effect has an influence of less than 6% on the frequency shift with a speed of 67.9 km/h. In the low-frequency band below 250 Hz, the noise in the acoustic shadow area near the bridge and the ground is mainly contributed to by the vibration-radiated noise of the bridge, of which the contribution of the bottom panel is the most prominent. The noise in the comprehensive noise area of the far bridge is mainly caused by the structure-borne noise of the bridge, and the contribution of each bridge panel is different. This study can provide a reference for finding the source of elevated rail noise in some challenging frequency ranges and for then determining optimal designs and measures for noise reduction.