Abstract
The long length and complex service load form conflicts with the low limits of longitudinal and transverse displacements of jointless bridge design. The longitudinal displacements of the Nanjing Dashengguan Yangtze River Bridge, a jointless steel-truss arch railway bridge, and its girder end reliability are investigated in this article. The time–frequency characteristics of the longitudinal displacements of bearings and expansion joints are analyzed using the empirical wavelet transform. The long-term characteristics of the longitudinal displacements of bearings and expansion joints in the operation period are explored. Furthermore, the relative transverse displacements of the bridge girder end are calculated using longitudinal displacement monitoring data. The mechanical behaviors of the expansion device under relative transverse displacements are studied. The reliability of expansion devices and crossing trains under the effects of relative transverse displacements is studied using kernel density estimation. The main results demonstrate that: (1) The longitudinal displacements of bearings and expansion joints are mainly influenced by environmental temperature. (2) The maximum relative transverse displacement of the expansion joint is close to 1 mm in long-term bridge operation, with the transverse rail deflection at the expansion device approaching 1 mm, which reduces the stability of cross high-speed trains.
Highlights
High-speed railways have provided remarkable mobility in densely populated areas, with bridges playing a vital role in their design
The study of the temperature effects on long-span bridges is an important focus of civil engineers, who wish to master the behavior of bridge structures under both day–night and seasonal temperature changes
Safety inTohigh-speed train systems, contact sensors cannot beon used theand rails andare railemployed to measure the longitudinal displacements of the bearings and expansion joints
Summary
High-speed railways have provided remarkable mobility in densely populated areas, with bridges playing a vital role in their design. Considering the complicated nature of the actual temperature field in a bridge during operation, additional studies have attempted to analyze the thermal effects on bridge structures based on measured data and long-term monitoring data [4,5,6,7,8,9]. Based on long-term SHM data, this article investigates the longitudinal behaviors and girder end reliability of a jointless steel-truss arch railway bridge in operation. The fatigue reliability of the expansion devices and the reliability of crossing trains under the in-service relative transverse displacements are studied, which can help bridge engineers to maintain this high-speed railway bridge during diurnal operation
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