I want to study the effects of train induced vibrations on nearby structures. For this purpose I used this paper :Article Finite element model of ballasted railway with infinite boun...
I modeled the ballasted railway with infinite element boundary with elastic geo-material. The properties that I used are similar to the information provided in Table 1 of this paper. I simulated the wheels of the train with rigid cubes and then applied the load of each wheel on the reference point of the cube as mentioned in the paper. The steel rail is constrained at the bottom to the top surface of sleepers with the so called "Tie" constraint in the Interaction module. In addition the contact between the sleepers and the ballast is modeled using the general contact option in Abaqus (tangential behavior is assumed rough and normal behavior is the so-called Hard contact.) and finally the contact between rigid cubes (wheels) and top of the rail is modeled with the frictionless tangential behavior and Hard contact normal behavior using the individual property assignment in the general contact tab.
The problem I have is that my results don't match the results of the paper. The vertical stress in control points M1 & M3 are the same with the results of the paper however the vertical displacements in these points have a large error.
I attached my results below. What's wrong with my simulation and how can I correct my results (vertical displacement)?