• Wind and Structures
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.145-167
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• 2014

Wind-vehicle-bridge (WVB) interaction can be regarded as a coupled vibration system. Aerodynamic forces and moment on vehicles and bridge decks play an important role in the vibration analysis of the coupled WVB system. High-speed vehicle motion has certain effects on the aerodynamic characteristics of a vehicle-bridge system under crosswinds, but it is not taken into account in most previous studies. In this study, a new testing system with a moving vehicle model was developed to directly measure the aerodynamic forces and moment on the vehicle and bridge deck when the vehicle model moved on the bridge deck under crosswinds in a large wind tunnel. The testing system, with a total length of 18.0 m, consisted of three main parts: vehicle-bridge model system, motion system and signal measuring system. The wind speed, vehicle speed, test objects and relative position of the vehicle to the bridge deck could be easily altered for different test cases. The aerodynamic forces and moment on the moving vehicle and bridge deck were measured utilizing the new testing system. The effects of the vehicle speed, wind yaw angle, rail track position and vehicle type on the aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle and bridge deck were investigated. In addition, a data processing method was proposed according to the characteristics of the dynamic testing signals to determine the variations of aerodynamic forces and moment on the moving vehicle and bridge deck. Three-car and single-car models were employed as the moving rail vehicle model and road vehicle model, respectively. The results indicate that the drag and lift coefficients of the vehicle tend to increase with the increase of the vehicle speed and the decrease of the resultant wind yaw angle and that the vehicle speed has more significant effect on the aerodynamic coefficients of the single-car model than on those of the three-car model. This study also reveals that the aerodynamic coefficients of the vehicle and bridge deck are strongly influenced by the rail track positions, while the aerodynamic coefficients of the bridge deck are insensitive to the vehicle speed or resultant wind yaw angle.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.191-211
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• 2015

Several frameworks for the dynamic analysis of wind-vehicle-bridge systems were presented in the past decade to study the safety or ride comfort of road vehicles as they pass through bridges under crosswinds. The wind loads on the vehicles were generally formed based on the aerodynamic parameters of the stationary vehicles on the ground, and the wind loads for the pure bridge decks without the effects of road vehicles. And very few studies were carried out to explore the dynamic effects of the aerodynamic interference between road vehicles and bridge decks, particularly for the moving road vehicles. In this study, the aerodynamic parameters for both the moving road vehicle and the deck considering the mutually-affected aerodynamic effects are formulized firstly. And the corresponding wind loads on the road vehicle-bridge system are obtained. Then a refined analytical framework of the WVB system incorporating the resultant wind loads, a driver model, and the road roughness in plane to fully consider the lateral motion of the road vehicle under crosswinds is proposed. It is shown that obvious lateral and yaw motions of the road vehicle occur. For the selected single road vehicle passing a long span bridge, slight effects are caused by the aerodynamic interference between the moving vehicle and deck on the dynamic responses of the system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.123-128
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• 2012

The responses of a bridge due to a moving vehicle are obtained analytically by modeling a vehicle as a constant point force. From the results it is found that the responses after a vehicle leaves the bridge become very small for some speeds of a vehicle. When a vehicle is modeled as a two dof system for a more accurate analysis, the same phenomenon is observed while the roughness of the bridge is small. Determining the fundamental frequency of a bridge so that one of the above speeds coincides with a frequent speed of vehicles, the responses of a bridge can be minimized.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.821-848
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• 2014

This paper presents a novel method to carry out monitoring of transport infrastructure such as pavements and bridges through the analysis of vehicle accelerations. An algorithm is developed for the identification of dynamic vehicle-bridge interaction forces using the vehicle response. Moving force identification theory is applied to a vehicle model in order to identify these dynamic forces between the vehicle and the road and/or bridge. A coupled half-car vehicle-bridge interaction model is used in theoretical simulations to test the effectiveness of the approach in identifying the forces. The potential of the method to identify the global bending stiffness of the bridge and to predict the pavement roughness is presented. The method is tested for a range of bridge spans using theoretical simulations and the influences of road roughness and signal noise on the accuracy of the results are investigated.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.77 no.5
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• pp.627-635
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• 2021

The speed of rail vehicles become higher and higher over two decades, and China has unveiled a prototype high-speed train in October 2020 that has been able to reach 400 km/h. At such high speeds, wheel-rail force items that had previously been ignored in common computational model should be reevaluated and reconsidered. Aiming at this problem, a new model for investigating the vehicle-bridge interaction at high moving speed is proposed. Comparing with the common model, the new model was more accurate and applicable, because it additionally considers the second-order pseudo-inertia forces effect and its modeling equilibrium position was based on the initial deformed curve of bridge, which could include the influences of temperature, pre-camber, shrinkage and creep deformation, and pier uneven settlement, etc. Taking 5 km/h as the speed interval, the dynamic responses of the classical vehicle-bridge system in the speed range of 5 km/h to 400 km/h are studied. The results show that ignoring the second-order pseudo-inertia force will underestimate the dynamic response of vehicle-bridge system and make the high-speed railway bridge structure design unsafe.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.123-130
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• 2013

The responses of a bridge due to a moving vehicle are obtained analytically by modeling a vehicle as a constant point force. From the results it is found that the responses after a vehicle leaves the bridge become very small for some speeds of a vehicle. When a vehicle is modeled as a two dof system for a more accurate analysis, the same phenomenon is observed while the roughness of the surface of the bridge is small. Determining the fundamental frequency of a bridge so that one of the above speeds coincides with a frequent speed of vehicles, the responses of a bridge can be minimized.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2003

This paper presents the formulation of a new bridge-vehicle system with validation using the field data. Both pitching and twisting modes of the vehicle are considered in the contribution of the dynamic effects in the bridge responses. A heavy vehicle was hired as a control vehicle with known axle weight, axle spacing and spring coefficients. The measured responses were generated from the control vehicle running at a particular speed at a test span at Ma Tau Wai Flyover. The measured responses were acquired using strain gauges installed beneath the girder beams of the test bridge. The simulated responses were generated using BRVEAN that is a self-developed program based on the proposed bridge-vehicle system. The validation shows that the bridge model is valid for representing the test bridge and the governing equations are valid for representing the motion of moving vehicles.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.324-327
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• 2011

The design requirement for ground mounted sign structures are fairly well defined in the AASHTO Standard Specifications for Structural Supports for Highway Signs, Luminaries, and Traffic Signals and consists of applying an equivalent pseudo-dynamic loading to account for the dynamic effects of wind loads and ignores the dynamic effect due to moving vehicle loads. This design approach, however, should not be applied to the design of bridge mounted sign structures because ignoring the dynamic effects of the moving vehicle loads may produce non-conservative results, since the stiffness of the bridge structure can greatly influence the behavior. Not enough information is available in the literatures which provide guide lines to include the influence of moving vehicles in the design of the bridge mounted sign structures. This paper describes a theoretical methodology, Bridge-Vehicle Interaction Element, which can be utilized to account for the dynamic effect of moving vehicles. A case study is also included where this methodology was successfully applied. It was concluded that the bridge-vehicle interaction finite element developed can provide a more accurate representation of the behavior of bridge mounted sign structures. The result of these analysis enabled development of simple and effective retrofitting scheme for the existing support system of bridge-mounted-structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.165-176
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• 2008

In this paper, a new iterative method for solving vehicle-bridge interaction problems is proposed. Iterative methods have advantages over the non-iterative methods in that it is not necessary to update the system matrix for a given wheel location, and the method can be applied for a new type of car or bridge with few or no modifications. In the proposed method, the necessity of system matrices update is eliminated using the equivalent interaction force acting on the bridge, which is obtained iteratively. Ballast stiffness is included in the interaction forces and the geometric compatibility at the contact points are used as convergence criteria. The bridge is considered as an elastic Bernoulli-Euler beam with surface irregularity and ballast stiffness. The moving vehicle is modeled as a multi-axle mass-spring-damper system having many degrees of freedom depending on the number of axles. The pitching effect, which is the interaction effect between the rear and front wheels when a vehicle begins to enter or leave the bridge, is also considered in the formulation including extended ground boundaries having surface irregularity and ballast stiffness. The applicability of the proposed method is illustrated in the numerical studies.

• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.169-185
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• 2012

The concrete bridge is likely to produce fatigue cracks during long period of service due to the moving vehicular loads and the degeneration of materials. This paper deals with the time-frequency analysis of a coupled bridge-vehicle system. The bridge is modeled as an Euler beam with breathing cracks. The vehicle is represented by a two-axle vehicle model. The equation of motion of the coupled bridge-vehicle system is established using the finite element method, and the Newmark direct integration method is adopted to calculate the dynamic responses of the system. The effect of breathing cracks on the dynamic responses of the bridge is investigated. The time-frequency characteristics of the responses are analyzed using both the Hilbert-Huang transform and wavelet transform. The results of time-frequency analysis indicate that complicated non-linear and non-stationary features will appear due to the breathing effect of the cracks.