Assessing the Open Trenches in Screening Railway Ground-Borne Vibrations by Means of Artificial Neural Network

Reducing ground borne vibrations in urban areas is a very challenging task in railway transportation. Many mitigation measures can be considered and applied; among these open trenches are very effective. This paper deals with the study of the effect, in terms of reduction of vertical and horizontal displacements and velocities, of the open trenches. 2D FEM simulations have been performed and several open trench configurations have been analysed varying the main geometric features such as width and depth, distance from the rail, thickness of the soil layer over the rigid bedrock, type of the ground, ratio between the depth of the trench, and the thickness of the soil layer. For quantifying the influence of the above specified parameters in reducing ground-borne vibrations an analysis using artificial neural networks (ANNs) has been carried out. Results show that among the geometric parameters the role of the depth of the trench is very significant; however the influence of the depth must be also evaluated in relation to the thickness of the soil layer.