• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제82권2호
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• pp.191-204
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• 2022

A three-mass vehicle model including one rigid mass and two unsprung masses is adopted to predict the vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) and to establish the nonlinear coupled governing equations. To overcome the numerical instability and large computation problems concerning the vehicle-bridge system, the perturbation method is used to convert the nonlinear coupled governing equations into a set of linear uncoupled equations. Formulas for bridge's natural frequencies considering both the VBI and the dynamic responses of bridge and vehicle are proposed. Compared with the numerical results obtained by the Newmark-β method, the theoretical solutions for natural frequencies and dynamic responses are validated. The effects of the important factors of unsprung mass, vehicle damping, surface irregularity on the natural frequencies and dynamic responses of bridge and vehicle are discussed, based on the theoretical solutions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제18권1호
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• pp.1-14
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• 2020

The vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) analysis might be cumbersome and computationally expensive in bridge engineering due to the necessity of solving large number of coupled system of equations. However, VBI analysis can provide valuable insights into the dynamic behavior of highway bridges under specific loading conditions. Hence, this paper presents a numerical study on the dynamic behavior of a conventional highway bridge under strong near-field and far-field earthquake motions considering the VBI effects. A recursive substructuring method, which enables solving bridge and vehicle equations of motion separately and suitable to be adapted to general purpose finite element softwares, was used. A thorough analysis that provides valuable information about the effect of various traffic conditions, vehicle velocity, road roughness and effect of soil conditions under far-field and near-field strong earthquake motions has been presented. A real-life concrete highway bridge was chosen for numerical demonstrations. In addition, sprung mass models of vehicles consist of conventional truck and car models were created using physical and dynamic properties adopted from literature. Various scenarios, of which the results may help to highlight the different aspects of the dynamic response of concrete highway bridges under strong earthquakes, have been considered.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제33권2호
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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.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제13권5호
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• pp.755-773
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• 2014

The natural frequency of a bridge is an important parameter in many engineering applications such as bridge seismic design and modal-based bridge health monitoring. The natural frequency of a bridge vibrating alone may differ from that vibrating along with a vehicle. Although such vehicle-induced variability in bridge frequency is revealed in several experimental and numerical simulation studies, few attempts have been made on the theoretical descriptions. In this study, both theoretically and experimentally, the variability in the bridge frequency induced by a parked vehicle is verified, and is therefore suggested to be considered in bridge-related engineering, especially for those cases with near vehicle-bridge resonance conditions or with large vehicle-to-bridge mass ratios. Moreover, the variability ranges could be estimated by an analytical formula presented herein.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제13권5호
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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.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.265-277
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• 2020

Recently, the concept of "drive-by" bridge monitoring system using indirect measurements from a passing vehicle to extract key parameters of a bridge has been rapidly developed. As one of the most key parameters of a bridge, the natural frequency has been successfully extracted theoretically and in practice using indirect measurements. The frequency of bridge is generally calculated applying Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) directly. However, it has been demonstrated that with the increase in vehicle velocity, the estimated frequency resolution of FFT will be very low causing a great extracted error. Moreover, because of the low frequency resolution, it is hard to detect the frequency drop caused by any damages or degradation of the bridge structural integrity. This paper will introduce a new technique of bridge frequency extraction based on Hilbert Transform (HT) that is not restricted to frequency resolution and can, therefore, improve identification accuracy. In this paper, deriving from the vehicle response, the closed-form solution associated with bridge frequency removing the effect of vehicle velocity is discussed in the analytical study. Then a numerical Vehicle-Bridge Interaction (VBI) model with a quarter car model is adopted to demonstrate the proposed approach. Finally, factors that affect the proposed approach are studied, including vehicle velocity, signal noise, and road roughness profile.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제32권4호
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• pp.411-423
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• 2023

The rapid development of road transport has increased the number of bridges that require widening. A critical issue in the construction of bridge widening is the influence of vibrations of the old bridge on the casting of wet joint concrete between the old and new bridges owing to the running traffic. Typically, the bridge is closed to traffic during the pouring of wet joint concrete, which negatively affects the existing transportation network. In this study, a newly developed microscopic traffic load modeling approach and the vehicle-bridge interaction theory are incorporated to develop a refined numerical framework for the analysis of random traffic-bridge coupled dynamics. This framework was used to investigate traffic-induced vibrations at the wet joint of a widened bridge. Based on an experimental study on the vibration resistance of wet joint concrete, traffic control strategies were proposed to ensure the construction performance of cast-in-site wet joint concrete under random traffic without interruption. The results show that the vibration displacement and frequency of the old bridge, estimated by the proposed framework, were comparable with those obtained from field measurements. Based on the target peak particle velocity and vibration amplitude of the wet joint concrete, it was found that traffic control measures, such as limiting vehicle gross weight and limiting traffic volume by closing an additional traffic lane, could ensure the construction performance of the wet joint concrete.