Vehicle-bridge interaction dynamics and potential applications

The dynamic interaction between a moving vehicle and the sustaining bridge is studied. By the method of modal superposition, closed-form solutions are obtained for the vertical responses of both the bridge and moving vehicle, assuming the vehicle/bridge mass ratio to be small. For both the bridge and vehicle responses, it is confirmed that rather accurate solutions can be obtained by considering only the first mode. The displacement, velocity, and acceleration of the bridge are governed at different extents by two sets of frequencies, i.e., the driving frequency of the vehicle and natural frequencies of the bridge. From the spectrum for the bridge displacement, the vehicle speeds can be shown to be associated with some low-frequency pikes. On the other hand, the vehicle responses are governed by five distinct frequencies that appear as driving frequencies, vehicle frequency, and bridge frequencies with shift. From the vehicle's acceleration spectrum, the first bridge frequency (with shift) is shown to have rather high visibility and can be easily identified. The effects of damping of the vehicle and bridge are evaluated in the numerical studies. Potential applications of the present results, as well as further researches required, are also indicated in the paper.