Efficient evaluation of bridge deformation for running safety of railway vehicles using simplified models

Abstract

The running safety of high-speed trains over bridges is a great concern in bridge design. Typically, the running safety of vehicles is evaluated by vehicle–track simulations that are computationally expensive and unfamiliar to bridge designers. This study investigates simplified vehicle–track models for assessing the running safety of vehicles on deformed bridges. Four types of simplified vehicle models along with four types of simplified wheel–track models are investigated. The predicted wheel–rail forces are compared with those simulated by the detailed vehicle–track program. In these simulations, typical bridge deformations are taken as excitations to the dynamic system. It is found that omitting the rail vibration leads to large wheel–rail response errors. The wheel–rail constraint model gives similar wheel–rail responses to those obtained by the Hertz contact model. A vehicle–track model with five degrees-of-freedom is adequate for assessing wheel–rail forces. Furthermore, an analytical solution to the wheel–rail forces running over an angular rotation was obtained. These simplified vehicle–track models provide an efficient way to assess the running safety of vehicles on deformed bridges when using probabilistic or optimal analyses that require a large number of simulations.

Review of annual progress of bridge engineering in 2019

“…However, few attentions were paid on the wind characteristics in the typhoon center which needs further study. As for the field measurement of wind flow over mountainous areas, the researchers utilized Windcube Lidar and ultrasonic anemometer to obtain the wind speed histories and analyzed wind direction (Jing et al 2019;Liao et al 2020;Yu et al 2019a;Zhang et al 2019q), turbulence characteristics and so on. According to their results, some consensus can be concluded as following: (a) the deep canyon terrain has obvious effects on locking the wind direction; (b) turbulence intensity calculated based on measurement data is more appropriate for engineering applications than power law; (c) the Von Kármán spectral models have significant applicability for the turbulence over mountainous areas; (d) the non-stationary characteristics of mountain wind fields are more significant than those of coastal and plain areas.…”

“…Zhu et al (2019e) combined the multi-time-step method and a moving track technique to reduce the computational burden. Jin et al (2020) investigated the simplified vehicle-track models for assessing the running safety of vehicles on deformed bridges. It is clarified that omitting the rail vibrations may leads to large wheel-rail response errors.…”

Experimental and Numerical Analyses of the Failure of Prestressed Concrete Railway Sleepers

“…In Table 3 presents the dimensionless properties of the concrete, using as input file in ABAQUS [34]. The concrete, in turn, was described by using the Abaqus Concrete Damage Plasticity model (Table 3), which is used for comprehensive modeling of concrete in a complex stress state [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42].…”

“…The first recurring problem that can result in structural failure in sleepers, especially in heavy-rail prestressed sleepers, is the failure by Rail Seat Abrasion (RSA). This deterioration is the result of an abrasion process, which is a gradual wear of the concrete cement paste, exposing the aggregate of the sleeper surface below rail foot [13,36,37]. RSA is related to weather, traffic and layout conditions.…”

“…Materials 2020, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 17 of 21 an abrasion process, which is a gradual wear of the concrete cement paste, exposing the aggregate of the sleeper surface below rail foot [13,36,37]. RSA is related to weather, traffic and layout conditions.…”