Nonlinear modeling of the vehicle/structure interaction on a skewed highway bridge using an iterative uncoupled approach

Abstract

Vehicle/structure interaction is extremely important in determining the structural performance of highway bridges. However, an accurate prediction of the generated vibrations and forces requires a high-fidelity nonlinear 3D model which is sufficiently representative of the actual vehicle and bridge structure. In spite of all the computational advancements, there are still many technical difficulties to obtain a converging solution from a coupled highly nonlinear and highly damped vehicle/structure models. This paper presents an iterative uncoupled approach to obtain an accurate estimation of the vehicle/structure interaction. The multi-axle vehicle is simulated using a nonlinear 3D multibody dynamics model. The bridge model also contains several nonlinear components to accurately model the bridge behavior. The vehicle/bridge interaction results are obtained through an iterative solution by exchanging the outputs of two uncoupled nonlinear models. A convergence criterion is selected to obtain a reliable solution after several of these iterations. Finally, a reduced-order model of the bridge is developed using a state-space model. The linear reduced-order model of the bridge is coupled with the nonlinear vehicle model to improve the solution time of the analysis. The results are in a very good agreement with the iterative uncoupled approach. © 2012 SPIE