Dynamic analysis of coupled vehicle–bridge system based on inter-system iteration method

An inter-system iteration method is proposed for dynamic analysis of coupled vehicle–bridge system. In this method, the dynamic responses of vehicle subsystem and bridge subsystem are solved separately, the iteration within time-step is avoided, the computation memory is saved, the programming difficulty is reduced, and it is easy to adopt the commercial structural analysis software for bridge subsystem. The calculation efficiency of the method is discussed by case study and an updated iteration strategy is suggested to improve the convergence characteristics for the proposed method.

► An inter-system iteration method is proposed for dynamic analysis of coupled vehicle–bridge.
► It is easy to adopt the commercial structural analysis software in solving the bridge subsystem.
► Effect of bridge mass and stiffness on vehicle–bridge analysis iteration step number is analyzed.
► An updated iteration strategy is suggested to improve the convergence characteristics.