Vehicle-Bridge Interaction System
Vehicle-Bridge Interaction System
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1 Introduction
The dynamic interaction between a bridge and a moving vehicle is a special discipline
in a wide field of structural dynamics. The following vehicles are considered: those that
make up the traffic flow of a road bridge, in general, or those that form a connected line of
railway cars, in particular. From a theoretical point of view, two subsystems, i.e. a bridge
and moving cars, can be modeled as two elastic structures, each of which is characterized
by some vibration frequencies. These two subsystems interact with each other with the help
of contact forces, i.e. forces caused at contact points between the wheels and the rail surface
(railway bridge) or road surface (road bridge). Such problem as this one is non-linear and
time-dependent because the contact forces can vary with time, while their values remain
constant as a result of the relative motion of the two subsystems. The way in which the two
subsystems interact with each other is primarily determined by the inherent frequencies of
the two subsystems and the excitation frequency of moving vehicles. The term vehicle-
bridge interaction (VBI) is used to refer to the interaction between two subsystems.
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“Vehicle” is considered as a car, a truck, a tractor trailer, or a railway car that forms part of
a train. The term “bridge” is also common. It can be just a beam, continuous construction or
a bridge of any type used for roads and railways with or without the effects of surface
coverage (for roads) or rails and ballast (for railways). Consideration of VBI is necessary if
the vehicle response is taken into account in addition to the bridge response. When
designing high-speed railway bridges, for example, the maximum vertical and / or lateral
acceleration of moving vehicles is used as indicators to assess the comfort ride of
passengers carried by the train.
In addition, the vertical and lateral contact forces of the railway car wheels represent a
kind of information for assessing the risk of derailment of trains, especially in the presence
of earthquakes. In many cases, in order to overcome a small mass ratio, the elastic and
inertial effects of vehicles can be ignored and much simpler models for vehicles can be
adopted. One typical example is the modeling of a moving vehicle over the bridge as one
moving load, which is called the moving load model and shown in Figure 1. Since the
interaction between the two subsystems is not taken into account, the moving load model is
only good for computing the response of the larger subsystem (bridge), but not the smaller
subsystem (car). The task of a moving load can be considered as a special case in a more
general formulation that considers the various dynamic properties of moving vehicles. The
goal is to create several effective methods as a part of the finite element method to solve the
dynamic response of VBI systems. In the derivation of the basic theories on the basis of
analytical approaches or in conducting parametric studies to illustrate the various dynamic
effects, more attention will be paid to the problems occurred in the design of high-speed
railway bridges in order to reflect concerns about safety and comfort when driving high-
speed trains.
2 Methods of research
Neglecting the inertial effect of the vehicle and considering the car as a moving load or
pulsating force, Tymoshenko (1922) produced a large number of approximate solutions to
the problem of simple beams under moving loads. Similar models were adopted by Eyre
and others (1950) and Eyre and Jacobsen (1950) in the study of the dynamic characteristics
of two beams, and then by Vellosi (1967) in the study of vibration of suspension bridges.
The replacement load model was also adopted by Chen (1978) in analyzing the dynamic
characteristics of continuous beams. There are lots of studies of vibration of bridges from
moving loads. It is only possible to cite some of the most closely related works, for
example, Tan and shore (1968), Friba (1972), Fertis (1973), Sridharan and Mallik (1979),
Wu and Dai (1987), Weaver et al. (1990) , Galdos et al. (1993), Wang (1997), Zheng et al.
(1998), Rao (2000), Chen and Li (2000), and Dugush and Eisenberg (2002). The
replacement load model is a simple model, which was often accepted by researchers in
studying vibrations of bridges caused by cars. With this model, the main dynamic
characteristics of the bridge caused by the action of a moving vehicle can be determined
with sufficient accuracy. Nevertheless, the interaction effect between the bridge and the
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moving vehicle was not taken into account. For this reason, the moving load model is only
good when the vehicle mass is small in compare with the mass of the bridge, and only when
the vehicle response is not taken into account. In cases where the inertia of the vehicle
cannot be neglected, the moving mass model shown in Figure 2 should be adopted.
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masses each supported by several springs and a damper or a friction device. In a study by
Yang and co-authors (1999), the railway car was modeled in the form of a rigid beam
supported by two sets of spring-damper blocks, each supported by wheels. This model
allows us to consider the effect of rocking the car’s body. To represent the various dynamic
properties of railway freight cars, models of vehicles that contain dozens of degrees of
freedom (degrees of freedom) were developed and used by Chu et al. (1986), Wang et al.
(1991), Xia and co-authors (2000), and Zhang et al. (2001). To study the “train-rail-bridge”
interaction, a train consisting of a sequence of identical cars was considered by others
(2001), which assumes that each car should consist of the car’s body and rigidly rest on the
front and rear trucks. In total, 5 degrees of freedom were obtained on the body of the car, as
well as on each truck to account for vertical and lateral movements. In contrast, only three
degrees of freedom refer to each wheel pair, which refer to vertical, lateral and rolling
movements. Although using a more complex vehicle model can make modeling more
realistic, it creates certain computational problems. For example, when modeling bridges, a
series of railway cars or vehicles on the road that look like a random stream (Young et al.,
1996) are suggested, a discrepancy or convergence can slowly occur during the iteration of
a large number of contact forces on wheels / or wheel guides / beams of contact points in a
step-by-step analysis. Another problem is that with the help of simplified models it is
possible to determine the key parameters that determine the dynamic response of the
bridge, which is important for developing rational formulas for use in design (Humar and
Kashif, 1993).
The beam supported at two ends is the most common construction that has ever been taken
to study the vibrations caused by a car. For research projects that rely only on analytical
approaches, in principle, there are no restrictions on the type of structures considered for
the tasks of VBI, structures can always be represented by finite elements of various forms;
the only difference is that a simpler bridge model requires less preparations and efforts in
the calculation. In the past, various types of bridges have also been considered in studies of
oscillations from vehicles.
The dynamic response of cable-stayed bridges for moving vehicles has been studied by
a number of researchers. When modeling a cable-stayed bridge on an elastic base, an
approach was proposed to simulate the dynamic effects of the cables. It was suggested to
track the levitation of vehicles moving at high speeds. The influence of the roughness of the
road surface was examined by Wang and Huang (1992) in studying the vibrations of the
cable-stayed bridge. Using an approximate bridge model, taking into account the nonlinear
effect of the cables, Jan and Fonder (1998) analyzed the dynamic response of cable-stayed
bridges under moving loads. In a review paper by Diane et al. (2000) for the railway run of
large-span cable-stayed bridges, he noted that the load has a greater influence in cable-
stayed bridges than in suspension bridges. Recently, Au and others investigated the effect
of the railway load on cable-stayed bridges using various vehicle models, and concluded
that the sliding model of mass forces, displacement, and road surface irregularities have a
large influence on the bridge response in compare to beam bridges. Guo and Xu (2001)
studied the interaction of a cable-stayed bridge and a tractor trailer moving across the
bridge. It was a fully computerized approach. Recently, a mass of a damper system
consisting of several subsystems, has been proposed by Yau and Yang (2004) to suppress
several resonant peaks of cable-stayed bridges, which can be caused by high-speed trains.
Vibration of suspension bridges from road transport was investigated by Chatterjee et al.
(1994); vibration and torsion were taken into account. The dynamic interaction between the
long suspension bridge, which has a main span length of 1377 m, and the train was
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insignificant - Xia et al. (2000). Later, the suspension bridge was studied by Xu et al.
(2003). There are strong winds that act not only on the bridge, but also directly on the train.
Their results showed that the bridge's oscillations from the wind adversely affect the safety
of a passing train, and also on the comfort of passengers’ trip. Another problem in modeling
the reaction of the bridge was the consideration of the roughness or irregularities of the
railway rails. It has been proven that road surface or irregularities of the road surface can
significantly affect the bridge response (Paultre et al., 1992). However, the irregularities of
the surface profile mainly depend on the quality of paving, although this problem may also
have an accidental character. In most cases, the surface roughness or irregularity of the rail,
which is three-dimensional in nature, is often approximated by a two-dimensional profile.
As for railways, the profiles of irregularities on the two longitudinal guide rails may be
different. The roughness of the road surface was considered by Gupta (1980) for the sine
function representing the height of the road surface. To take into account its random nature,
the road profile can be modeled as a standard Gaussian random process, and it is generated
using a certain power of the spectral density function. Methods like these were widely used
by researchers in studying bridge oscillations from cars. The spectral power density
functions developed by Dodds and Robson (1973) were modified and used by Wang and
Huang (1992) and Huang and others (1993) in analyzes. The work of Marcondis et al.
(1991) is of interest because the spectral power density functions are used to compute using
data collected from field measurements. This approach was adopted by Jan Lin (1995) in
the study of simple and continuous beams, passing vehicles that move at different speeds.
As for railway bridges, the irregularities of the rails can be caused by initial errors during
installation, settlement of materials. Four geometric parameters can be used to
quantitatively describe the irregularities of the rail, i.e. vertical profile, transverse level and
alignment (Wiriyachai et al., 1982; Chu et al., 1986; Van et al., 1991). From the point of
view of structural dynamics, wavelengths or frequencies from the implied railway
disturbances are crucial for the dynamic behavior of the VBI system. The frequencies
implied by the roughness of the bridge surface play the same role as the frequency of the
bridge, since resonance can occur on the bridge because of passing vehicles.
3 Solutions
When studying the dynamic response of the VBI system, two sets of equations of motion
can be recorded, one for the bridge and the other for vehicles. It is the interaction or contact
forces, which exist when contacting the point of two subsystems, which make two sets of
equations in the system. As transition contact points, the matrix system, as a rule, depends
on the time that needs to be updated, and is expanded at each time step. Several approaches
have been used to solve these two sets of equations. One way is to assume that some offset
values for contact points can be solved from the equations of the vehicle. After that,
substituting contact forces in the bridge equation, the offset value for contact points can be
found. This is so-called iterative approach. Its advantage is that the responses of both
vehicles and the bridge at any time can be simultaneously found. Nevertheless, the
convergence rate of iterations is going to be low when it comes to a more realistic case of
bridges under a large number of vehicles. This can be in a random traffic flow, in highways,
or in a connected line, as well as in railways, or when there are twice as much contact
points if it is assumed that the vehicle consists of two sets of wheel units.
In the literature, the Lagrange equation with multipliers and constraints was also applied
to the analysis of the VBI systems (Blejwas et al., 1979). As is well known, the use of
Lagrange multipliers will increase the total number of unknowns and, therefore, will
increase the calculations. Speaking theoretically, the third approach is still possible,
namely, by eliminating the interaction of contact forces from the initial sets of two
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equations, it is possible to form a new set of coupled equations for the whole VBI system.
However, if the approach is performed at the construction level, the symmetry and other
advantageous properties of the dynamic matrices, associated with each subsystem, will be
destroyed (Jan and Lin, 1995).
Perhaps one of the most effective approaches to solving VBI equations will be the
implementation of condensation technique at the element level. Gark and Dukkipathi
(1984) used (1965) the reduction of the Guyan scheme for condensation of the degrees of
freedom of vehicles. Recently, Jan and Lin (1995) have used dynamic condensation as a
way to eliminate all degrees of freedom associated with each vehicle at the element level.
Such approaches are good, if only the bridge response (large subsystem) is taken into
account. They cannot give exact solutions for the response of mobile vehicles (a smaller
subsystem) due to the approximations made in respect of the DOFs car to the DOFs bridge.
Other methods that were used to solve the minor differential equations of motion of the
VBI problem include: (1) direct integration methods such as Newmark's β method (1959),
Wilson's θ method (Sridharan and Mallick, 1979), and Runge -Kutta fourth-order method
(Chu et al, 1986); (2) modal superposition method, along with various integration schemes;
and (3) the Fourier transform method.
One significant feature of the VBI problem is that the number of vehicles on the bridge
depends on the time. The greater the number of vehicles simultaneously operating on the
bridge, the higher the level for vehicles to interact with the bridge. To overcome the
dependence of the matrix system on the wheel load positions, i.e. place of contact point,
one possible approach is to eliminate DOFs in these vehicles and is not in direct contact
with the bridge element level of the dynamic condensation method (Yang and Lin, 1995).
This will lead to the VBI element that takes into account all the coupling effects. Brief
description of the solution presented by Yang and Yau (1997) to obtain the VBI element is
presented below. Consider a beam as a certain number of elements under a railway load in
which each car is idealized as two concentrated masses, each of which is supported by a
spring-loaded damper unit, as shown in Figure 4.
Fig. 4. Vehicle – bridge system: (а) general model; (b) damper model.
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For the purposes of this study, the interaction element is defined in such a way that it
consists of a beam element, the mass of a car, and the mass of a wheel connected by a
spring-damper block of a direct action block above the beam element (Figure 5).
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4 Results
In design practice, the dynamic response of the bridge was considered indirectly by
increasing the force and stress caused by the static time loads on the impact coefficient,
which is defined as the ratio of the maximum dynamic to the maximum static reaction of
the bridge to the same load. One of the typical definitions of the impact factor (Yang et al,
1995):
Rd ( x ) R s ( x )
I , (1)
Rs ( x )
where Rd (х) and Rs (х) are, respectively, the maximum dynamic and static responses of the
bridge calculated at the cross-section x.
The responses that can be considered for a beam include deflection, bending moment
and transverse force, the definition given in formula (1) is more rational and convenient to
calculate than the dynamic increase factor (DIF) proposed by the AASHTO (Manual,
1980), or dynamic amplification factor (DAF), since both the maximum dynamic and static
responses are calculated in the same cross section of the bridge. This advantage will
become obvious when working with moving loads that appear as a sequence. For example,
trains as a random stream, like those on highways, or in solving resonance response
problems, in the sense that the reaction of the bridge in the same section will be
strengthened, since there are more cargo passing through the bridge. It’s necessary to take
care and distinguish the maximum exposure factor from the maximum general response
calculated for the beam. Factors can be calculated for beams at certain points because the
static responses, i.e. the denominator of equation (1), are very small. For this reason, the
impact factor calculated or measured for the bridge should not be considered as the only
criterion for the design of bridges.
It is well known that a number of factors can affect the bridge during excitation by a
moving mobile load, for example, the dynamic properties of the car, the dynamic properties
of the bridge, the speed of the car, and the roughness of the road surface. According to
AASHTO, technical characteristics and the impact factor are related to the span length L of
the bridge, when the length of the span L is expressed in feet, and when L is expressed in
meters.
The formula was created several decades ago, based on limited field measurements that
are valid for specific types of vehicles and bridges available in those days. If a person
realizes that modern trucks are much heavier than those ones which were half a century
ago, then the preceding formulas can be convenient for practical design, but they are not the
basis of the theory for at least two reasons. Firstly, the formulas are inconsistent in physical
units. The impact factor I is a dimensionless value, while the span length has some physical
units. Secondly, the use of the span length as a control parameter is not an indication of the
physical attribute of the bridge with regard to vehicle-bridge interactions. This is especially
true for continuous beams, for which there is more than one span length, none of which can
be directly related to the modal form of vibration. Based on the proved more extensive
theoretical analyzes and field measurements, it has been shown that impact factors
calculated according to current standards can significantly underestimate bridge response in
many cases. By designating the speed of a moving vehicle as V and the length characteristic
of the beam as L, the driving frequency of the moving vehicle can be expressed as πv / L.
The speed parameter S, which is particularly useful for expressing the dynamic response of
the VBI system, is defined as the ratio of the frequency of a moving vehicle to the main
beam frequency, which is dimensionless, that is:
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V
S , (2)
L
5 Conclusions
Models of vehicles change and become more complicated with time, including moving load
and moving mass. Factors to be taken into account in the analysis of the response of VBI
system include the dynamic properties of the engine and the frequencies of moving
vehicles, as well as the dynamic properties and roughness of the bridge surface. Despite the
higher complexity of vehicle models, for example, consisting of dozens of degrees of
freedom, vehicle models and bridge models can be adopted, since it allows identifying key
parameters that determine the dynamics of VBI systems. The impact factor is calculated on
the basis of the values with the same cross-section of the beam. This is convenient to apply
in cases where a number of moving loads are taken into account. These impact formulas,
provided by most modern design standards, do not correspond in physical units and do not
have a solid theoretical basis, from which the application should not extend on bridges with
vehicles passed by them at high speeds. A more rational approach is to link the impact
factor, which is dimensionless, to the speed parameter, which is also dimensionless and is
defined as the ratio of the frequency of moving vehicles to the oscillation frequency of the
bridge.
The problem of VBI is complex because the contact points of vehicles with the bridge
move over time. There are various methods for solving this problem. However, the most
effective one is based on the condensation of the non-contact vehicle DOFs to the beam
element. The element of VBI is obtained in such a way that it can be applied to the solution
of a wide variety of the task of VBI, with the help of which the dynamic response of
moving vehicles and the bridge can be obtained.
References
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the response of vehicles passing through them. Thesis for the degree of Candidate of
Technical Sciences (2013)
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materials of the international scientific e-symposium, Monitoring system of damages of
bridge structures by integral characteristics, ISBN 978-5-00090-074 (MCNIP, Kirov,
2015)
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