Investigating the impact of the velocity of a vehicle with a nonlinear suspension system on the dynamic behavior of a Bernoulli–Euler bridge

Abstract

AbstractSeveral authors, utilizing both experimental tests and complicated numerical models, have investigated vehicle speed's impact on a highway bridge's dynamic amplification. Although these tests and models provide reliable quantitative data on frequency contents of the interaction between the two subsystems, engineers should pay further notice to the effects of a subsystem's velocity and the type of suspension system of a vehicle moving over a structure. Hence, in this paper, the dynamic response of a bridge to a moving vehicle is considered. The car is assumed as a quarter car model with both linear and nonlinear stiffness and damping constants. Further, using the modal superposition method, a closed-form solution is obtained for the bridge's vertical response. The results obtained via numerical calculation show a significant increase in the bridge midpoint and total deflection, velocity, and acceleration by increasing the vehicle velocity. Moreover, by neglecting the nonlinear stiffness and damping coefficients of the vehicle suspension system, the bridge's dynamic response remains almost the same with respect to the numerical data. As a general conclusion, it can be claimed that the only significant parameters which can change the dynamic behavior of a bridge subjected to a moving vehicle are the speed of the car and its linear stiffness and damping constants inside its suspension system.