Presentation from the 9:th International Workshop on Railway Noise (IWRN) in Feldafing, Munich, Germany, 2007.

In Sweden a new research project aimed at studying noise and vibration from railway traffic has been started. An important part of the project is controlled laboratory experiments where subjects are exposed to noise and vibration when sleeping. The first set of experiments (using only noise) have already started, and the vibration excitation is under construction. Here the focus is on the construction of the laboratory and the design of the experiments, but some preliminary results are also presented. The sound system consists of roof mounted speakers for low frequencies, and two speaker cabinets for the high frequency part. Train passages recorded in the field on the façade of a building are filtered to account for façade insulation and presented to the subjects. This enables many scenarios to be studied with the same setup by selecting the individual sounds and changing the parameters of the filter. The vibration excitation system under construction will be based on electro-dynamical shakers which will interact with the bed to force it to vibrate.