Seong-Won Nam
International Journal of Railway, vol. 1, no. 4, pp.169-174, 2008

Abstract : Experimental study has been conducted to clarify the internal and external pressure variation characteristics for KTX(Korea Train eXpress) passing through tunnel. Abrupt pressure variation gives rise to the ear-discomfort for passenger and fatigue for car body. In this study, the internal and external pressure variation are measured by using KTX real train experiment and on-board portable data acquisition system in Gyeongbu high speed commercial line. The tunnels from 200 m to 4000 m in length are chosen for the investigation of tunnel length effects. From the results of experiment, the internal pressure variation rate for all the test tunnels is lower than the standard criteria of 200 Pa/s. And, the critical tunnel lengths for pressure wave pattern are classified into 7 groups by using the theoretical L-t diagram analysis.

Keyword : Pressure variation, Ear-discomfort, High speed train, Critical tunnel length