A simplified method to assess vehicle–bridge interaction for train-induced vibration of light-weight railway bridges

Abstract

ABSTRACT Moving constant load (MCL) models, which neglect dynamic effects of moving vehicles, are widely adopted for train-induced vibration analysis of railway bridges in current high-speed rail codes, such as Eurocode or UIC code, for simplicity in modeling trainloads to carry out response analysis of bridges. However, for light-weight highspeed railway bridge structures, such as single-track steel bridges, train-induced resonance on bridges would be overestimated if the dynamic vehicle–bridge interactions (VBI) were neglected. To assess such VBI benefits on resonance reduction of railway bridges using MCL model, this paper presents an analytical strategy to determine the equivalent additional structural damping ratios and modal masses on the bridge deck. According to the numerical validation supplied by two types of bridges, i.e. simple beam and truss bridge, the proposed approach was successfully demonstrated to account for the VBI benefits on resonance reduction of light-weight bridges under moving trains using MCL models.