Dynamic loadings of moving vehicles on curved concrete segmental single box girder bridges

Abstract

<p>This paper presents the dynamic behaviors of curved concrete segmental bridges. The bridges are modeled as thin-wall structures and analyzed using the thin-wall finite element method. The effects of bridge torsion and distortion are considered in the analysis. A vehicle is simulated as a three- dimensional nonlinear model. The road profile is modeled as a stationary Gaussian random process that is described by a power spectral density (PSD) function. The effects of vehicle speeds, bridge radii, bridge span lengths on the bridge dynamic loadings are analyzed. Through an extensive numerical analysis on 20 typical curved bridges, an approximate method for determining the concrete segmental bridges is proposed. The research results are applicable to the design of concrete segmental bridges.</p>