Analysis of Aerodynamic Noise in High Speed Trains

Controlling the exterior and interior noise emission has become an important issue in the research and development of high speed trains. As the operating speed of the train increases, the noise emission characteristics are expected to deviate from that of the existing trains due to several changes in the basic train layout. For train speed in excess of 350 km/h in particular, the aerodynamic noise component starts to exceed the structure-borne noise component, and even an incremental speed increase is accompanied by a rapid elevation in the noise level. The present study presents an engineering approach for predicting the aerodynamic noise level at the design stage for high speed trains. The experimental noise measurements from test run of Korean high speed train under development are presented as a partial validation of the proposed approach. While the overall aerodynamic noise can be cast in a single power law relationship against the train speed, different parts of the train show power law relationships unique to each component.