Effective Pre-Stress Identification for a Simply-Supported PRC Bridge Based on the Dynamic Response Induced by the Passing Vehicle

Abstract

A new method is proposed to identify the bridge effective pre-stress from the dynamic responses induced by the vehicle moving on a simply-supported beam bridge with eccentric straight pre-stress, based on the sensitivity analysis. The bridge is modeled as Euler beam elements and the moving vehicle is modeled as a two-degree freedom system with five parameters. After calculating dynamic responses of the bridge by vehicle-bridge coupled vibration analysis, the dynamic responses sensitivity can be obtained by using the direct derivation method, and the regularization method is adopted to identify the effective pre-stress. The effects on the identified results from different responses, different measuring locations and different road surface roughness are considered in the numerical simulations. The simulation studies indicate that the proposed method can be used to identify the effective pre-stress accurately and effectively for a simply-supported PRC beam bridges.