An algorithm to study non-stationary random vibrations of vehicle–bridge systems

An efficient algorithm is proposed for non-stationary random vibration of vehicle–bridge systems. The pseudo excitation method (PEM) is extended to handle the random analysis of time-dependent vehicle–bridge systems, for which the statistical characteristics of dynamic responses are computed. A vehicle–bridge interaction element is adopted to reduce the computational effort. In the numerical examples, the proposed method is justified by comparing with Monte Carlo simulation results. Also, a method to estimate maximum responses is suggested. Examples include a train moving across both simply supported and three-span continuous bridges and some observed phenomena are discussed.