Investigation on three-directional dynamic interaction between a heavy-duty vehicle and a curved bridge

Abstract

Considering the nonlinear property of suspension damping and tire stiffness, a full-vehicle model is built for a heavy-duty truck. A modified preview driver model with nonlinear time delay is inserted into the vehicle model to compute the suitable steering angle of the front wheel and to make the vehicle follow the required route. Next, the finite element model of a five-span continuous curved highway bridge is established, and the bridge’s inherent frequencies and modes are obtained. The curved bridge and the vehicle are coupled by three-directional tire forces, and a three-directional driver–vehicle–bridge interaction model is presented. The presented vehicle model and bridge model are verified by comparing with the published works. The dynamic impact factors of vertical, lateral, and torsional displacements of the bridge are calculated when a vehicle is traversing through the bridge, and the impact factors’ distributions along the bridge are analyzed. The effects of vehicle driving conditions on impact factors are also researched. It is found that the impact factor calculated from the present specification for a straight bridge is smaller than that from the three-directional driver–vehicle–bridge interaction model, and the vertical and torsional impact effects at the third span midpoint are greater than the lateral impact effect.