Breaking the Ground Speed Barriers for Ultra Speed Trains: Rayleigh Ground Wave Modelling and Mitigation

History has shown that operational train speeds tend to eventually follow maximum train speeds. The age of high-speed railways has been steadily developing since the construction of the Shinkansen Railway Line in the 1960s. The Japanese Maglev set a speed record of 581 km/h in 2003; however, a modified French TGV set a speed record of 574.8 km/h on a ballast track in 2007. It is clear that a new era of train speed records is being set, which leads to potential issues with train-track interaction. In this paper the problem of train speeds passing the Rayleigh ground wave velocity are modelled using a three-dimensional finite element program called DART3D. The paper shows the development of a ground Mach cone and associated ground vibration both on the track and towards the far-field boundaries.