Keywords: railway-induced vibration, dynamic soil-structure interaction, hybrid modelling, vibration predictions.

The characterisation of a building's response to railway-induced vibration is an important aspect in formulating vibration predictions. However quantification of the soil-structure interaction that is present when a building is subject to ground-borne vibration from a nearby railway has received little attention. This is primarily due to the difficulty and expense of undertaking measurement campaigns or formulating numerical models of this complex system. Vibration attenuation through the foundation, floors and spans are accounted for in empirical models using 'rule of thumb' adjustment factors. Numerical models that encompass the track, soil and building are rarely used due to their computational expense and the required detailed parameter inputs.

By adopting the empirical approach of separate source, propagation and receiver terms, the building response can be characterised as the difference between vibration levels measured inside and outside of the building. This approach is explored for three scenarios: the reference case, where both track and building are present; the case of a new building; and the case of a new railway. The feasibility of quantifying the building response term for each of these scenarios using experimental measurements or numerical simulations is explored, and a numerical study is undertaken. The results show that similar building coupling loss factors are obtained for each of these scenarios.

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