Q Damper

The ideal retrofit solution to railway noise

Guarantee 4-10dB(A) Noise Reduction

Made specific for your site
Q Damper can be tuned to specific resonance frequency to suit your needs. We can also design our damper to mount onto different rail profile.

Safe and maintenance free
Once installed on the rail, it is designed to last for 20 years. Q Damper does not interfere with the signalling system as well as grinding machine.

Easy to install
Installed with only hand tools, Q Damper can be installed during non-traffic hours without any implications.

Vertical and lateral tuned mass damping

Q Damper adopts tuned mass damping mechanism to concentrate damping force to specific frequency. In contrast to other rail dampers, Q Damper also provides strong damping force to laterally which is a major factor to curve noise and corrugation formation. This allows Q Damper to be the only rail damper in the world that can also suppress corrugation growth rate by 90%.

3-point Rigid Contact

Unlike existing rail damper that uses rubber-to-metal contact, the patented rigid-contact interface provides 100% vibration transmission between rail and damper, which allows the strongest damping force counter-acting rail vibration. Depending on the choice of rubber material and loss factor, the damping force is amplified by a factor of 5 to 8, comparing to the original vibration force acting to the contact interface of the damper.

Only rail damper in the world also suppress rail corrugation growth

Rail corrugation is strong associated with rail lateral vibration mode. With lateral vibration energy being dissipated by Q Damper, corrugation growth rate can be suppressed. Up to 2023, Q Damper is the only rail damper in the world reported to suppress rail corrugation growth by 90% for High Attenuation Baseplates and by 70% for LVT.

Groundborne noise retrofit mitigations?

Groundborne noise reduction by rail damper is a “MISSION IMPOSSIBLE” due to small damper mass against huge mass in tunnel structure.

However, for groundborne noise caused by rail P2 resonance (unsprung mass resonance, in the range of 30 Hz to 100 Hz), Q-Damper is able to suppress the rail P2 resonance, and the associated groundborne noise. The floor vibration data of the P2 resonance laboratory indicates groundborne noise reduction in the range of 4 to 8dB(A).

It is the only rail damper in the world reported to reduce groundborne noise. In contrast to mitigation by vibration isolation trackform, like Floating Slab Track and High Attenuation Baseplates, Q Damper is quick and easy retrofit.

You choose the density to fit your budget

Q Damper is modular design able to fit up to 3 units in the space between rail support. Half installation of Q Damper is already enough to reduce rail noise quieter than other sources (motor noise, wheel noise, etc.). Combined with our latest patented technology, -4 to 10 dB(A) noise reduction is guaranteed.

Please visit Project page on site performance data of Q Damper