Adaptive decomposition and energy-frequency characteristics of high-speed railway train vibration signals on the surface of shallow-buried tunnels

Linli Zhou
School of Civil Engineering, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin 123000, China
Kenan Zheng
School of Civil Engineering, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin 123000, China
Baoxin Jia
School of Civil Engineering, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin 123000, China; Liaoning Key Laboratory of Ecological Restoration Technology in Abandoned Mining Areas, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin 123000, China
Zhiyang Zhou
School of Civil Engineering, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin 123000, China
Sihao Ding
School of Civil Engineering, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin 123000, China

Article ID: 4256

Keywords: shallow-buried tunnel; high-speed railway train vibration signal; energy-frequency characteristic; variational mode decomposition; parameter adaptation; energy attenuation

Abstract

Vibration signals induced by high-speed railway trains on the surface above shallow-buried tunnels exhibit strong non-stationarity and high background noise due to the coupling of tunnel dynamic response and environmental noise. Traditional signal processing methods struggle to extract key wheel-rail vibration components accurately. To solve this issue, this study proposes an adaptive parameter optimization method for variational mode decomposition (VMD), termed SE-SSA-VMD, based on sample entropy (SE) and the sparrow search algorithm (SSA). By intelligently optimizing the mode number K and penalty factor α, the method improves decomposition objectivity and anti-noise robustness. Simulation results confirm that the method achieves accurate effective mode separation with an average center frequency error below 0.2 Hz at a signal-to-noise ratio of 5 dB. Measured data indicate that vibration energy is mainly concentrated in 35–60 Hz with a Gaussian unimodal distribution, and the adjusted R² of over 95% measuring points exceeds 0.8. Higher train speed significantly increases vertical vibration energy, while longer marshalling mainly strengthens lateral vibration energy; both cause a downward shift of the dominant frequency. Far-field vibration energy does not decay monotonically and shows slight local fluctuations, but remains at a low level owing to strong energy dissipation of overlying artificial fill, regardless of initial speed and near-field energy. This work provides an effective approach and theoretical support for vibration assessment and mitigation design in shallow-buried high-speed railway tunnel sections.

Published

2026-07-20

How to Cite

Zhou, L., Zheng, K., Jia, B., Zhou, Z., & Ding, S. (2026). Adaptive decomposition and energy-frequency characteristics of high-speed railway train vibration signals on the surface of shallow-buried tunnels. Sound & Vibration, 60(4). https://doi.org/10.59400/sv4256

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Vol. 60 No. 4 (2026)

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Article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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