FEASIBILITY STUDY ON STRUCTURE-BORNE NOISE CONTROL OF STEEL RAILWAY BRIDGE UTILIZING PIEZOELECTRIC CERAMICS

We propose to use piezoelectric ceramics (PZT) with shunted circuits, as a technique to reduce structure-borne noise of steel bridges. This technique changes vibration energy of steel bridges into electric energy by the piezoelectric ceramics installed thereon, and the tuned shunted circuit dissipates the electric energy into thermal energy. At first we clarify the influence that eigenmode of a web panel of a test girder gives structure-borne noise in the test girder. And we test a steel plate which imitated the web panel of the test girder, and compared the results when vibrations were controlled and not controlled. The test results showed effectiveness in vibration control and noise reduction, and indicated that the proposed technique dissipated vibration energy. Furthermore, based on these results, we examined vibration control and noise reduction for the test girder.