• 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.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.145-163
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• 2024

The evaluation of dynamic characteristics of bridges under operational traffic loads is a crucial aspect of bridge structural health monitoring. In the vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) system, the vibration responses of bridge exhibit time-varying characteristics. To address this issue, an accurate time-frequency analysis method that combines the autoregressive power spectrum based empirical wavelet transform (AR-EWT) and local maximum synchrosqueezing transform (LMSST) is proposed to identify the time-varying instantaneous frequencies (IFs) of the bridge in the VBI system. The AR-EWT method decomposes the vibration response of the bridge into mono-component signals. Then, LMSST is employed to identify the IFs of each mono-component signal. The AR-EWT combined with the LMSST method (AR-EWT+LMSST) can resolve the problem that LMSST cannot effectively identify the multi-component signals with weak amplitude components. The proposed AR-EWT+LMSST method is compared with some advanced time-frequency analysis techniques such as synchrosqueezing transform (SST), synchroextracting transform (SET), and LMSST. The results demonstrate that the proposed AR-EWT+LMSST method can improve the accuracy of identified IFs. The effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method are validated through a multi-component signal, a VBI numerical model with a four-degree-of-freedom half-car, and a VBI model experiment. The effect of vehicle characteristics, vehicle speed, and road surface roughness on the identified IFs of bridge are investigated.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.393-402
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• 2020

Long-span bridges with high flexibility and low structural damping are very susceptible to the vortex-induced vibration (VIV), which causes extremely negative impacts on the ride comfort of vehicles running on the bridges. To assess the ride comfort of vehicles running on the long-span bridges subjected to VIV, a coupled wind-vehicle-bridge system applicable to the VIV case is firstly developed in this paper. In this system, the equations of motion of the vehicles and the bridge subjected to VIV are established and coupled through the vehicle-bridge interaction. Based on the dynamic responses of the vehicles obtained by solving the coupled system, the ride comfort of the vehicles can be evaluated using the method given in ISO 2631-1. At last, the proposed framework is applied to several case studies, where a long-span suspension bridge and two types of vehicles are taken into account. The effects of vehicle speed, vehicle type, road roughness and vehicle number on the ride comfort are investigated.

• 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.

• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.299-308
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• 2010

The indirect approach for measuring the bridge frequencies from the dynamic responses of a passing vehicle is a highly potential method. In this study, the effect of road surface roughness on such an approach is studied through finite element simulations. A two-dimensional mathematical model with the vehicle simulated as a moving sprung mass and the bridge as a simply-supported beam is adopted. The dynamic responses of the passing vehicle are solved by the finite element method along with the Newmark ${\beta}$ method. Through the numerical examples studied, it is shown that the presence of surface roughness may have negative consequence on the extraction of bridge frequencies from the test vehicle. However, such a shortcoming can be overcome either by introducing multiple moving vehicles on the bridge, besides the test vehicle, or by raising the moving speed of the accompanying vehicles.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.775-796
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• 2014

This study presents a vibration-based health monitoring strategy for short span bridges utilizing an inspection vehicle. How to screen the health condition of short span bridges in terms of a drive-by bridge inspection is described. Feasibility of the drive-by bridge inspection is investigated through a scaled laboratory moving vehicle experiment. The feasibility of using an instrumented vehicle to detect the natural frequency and changes in structural damping of a model bridge was observed. Observations also demonstrated the possibility of diagnosis of bridges by comparing patterns of identified bridge dynamic parameters through periodical monitoring. It was confirmed that the moving vehicle method identifies the damage location and severity well.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.721-726
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• 2002

The topic on today is dynamic response analysis of curved bridge-AGT(Automated Guide-way Transit) vehicle interaction system. Rubber wheel type AGT vehicle is adopted in this study, and the vehicle is idealized as three dimensional eleven DOF model. Three types of composited steel box girder bridges are modelized with F.E. method. And three types of artificially generated surface roughnesses are adopted for analysis. The dynamic equations of curved bridge, AGT vehicle and surface roughness are derived by using Lagrange's equation of motion. And the equations are solved by Newmark-${\beta}$ method. As a result, The dynamic increasement factor is inverse proportional to radius curvature.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.23-28
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• 2022

Natural frequency variations in a vehicle-bridge interaction system is examined. The interaction system is designed for a simple beam subject to a moving vehicle. The equation of motion for the system is derived under the quarter-car condition, and numerical simulation is performed. Frequency amplification ratio (FAR) is defined as a ratio between the initial and the varying natural frequency of the system; a discontinuity in the FAR implies a resonance condition. Analysis is mainly focused on patterns, frequency variation characteristics, and discontinuity points of the FAR under the vehicle mass and tire stiffness variations. The result reveals that the interactions between the system affects the natural frequency of both the vehicle and the bridge in similar frequency regions that can be visually identified at the middle of the span using the FAR.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.191-196
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• 2005

In this study, to describe vehicle-track-bridge dynamic interaction phenomena with 1/4 vehicle model, nonlinear Hertzian contact spring and nonlinear contact damper are introduced. In this approach external loads acting on 1/4 vehicle model are self weight of vehicle and geometry information of running surface. The constraint equation on contact surface is implemented by Penalty method. Also, to improve the numerical stability and to maintain accuracy of solution, the artificial damper and the reaction from constraint violation are introduced. A nonlinear time integration method, in this study, Newmark method is adopted for both equations of vehicles and structure. And to reduce the error caused by inadequate time step size, adaptive time-stepping technique is partially introduced. As the nonlinear Hertzian contact spring has no resistance to tensile force, the bouncing phenomena of wheelset can be described. Thus, it is expected that more versatile dynamic interaction phenomena can be described by this approach and it can be applied to various railway dynamic problems.

• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.173-191
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• 2010

Damage detection plays a very important role to the maintenance of bridge structures. Traditional damage detection methods are usually based on structural dynamic properties, which are acquired from pre-installed sensors on the bridge. This is not only time-consuming and costly, but also suffers from poor sensitivity to damage if only natural frequencies and mode shapes are concerned in a noisy environment. Recently, the idea of using the dynamic responses of a passing vehicle shows a convenient and economical way for damage detection of bridge structures. Inspired by this new idea and the well-established tap test in the field of non-destructive testing, this paper proposes a new method for obtaining the damage information through the acceleration of a passing vehicle enhanced by a tapping device. Since no finger-print is required of the intact structure, this method can be easily implemented in practice. The logistics of this method is illustrated by a vehicle-bridge interaction model, along with the sensitivity analysis presented in detail. The validity of the method is proved by some numerical examples, and remarks are given concerning the potential implementation of the method as well as the directions for future research.