Wheel–rail contact formulation for analyzing the lateral train–structure dynamic interaction

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SUMMARYA study about the running safety of trains moving over bridges subjected to earthquakes is presented. The study focuses on moderate earthquakes with relatively small return periods and high probability of occurrence. The analyses are performed using a nonlinear train-bridge interaction method proposed by the authors, being the running safety evaluated with safety criteria existent in the literature. The influence on the train running safety of the seismic intensity levels, train running speed, and track quality is evaluated. Because no significant nonlinearity is likely to be exhibited in the columns for moderate levels of seismicity, the analyses are performed in the elastic domain. However, the reduction in the columns stiffness due to cracking is accounted, and a methodology to compute their effective stiffness is proposed.

Section: Vehicle-structure Couplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Running Safety Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The superscripts t indicate that the vectors are defined with respect to the target element coordinate system presented in [13]. The first condition described by Eq.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Running safety assessment of trains moving over bridges subjected to moderate earthquakes

Montenegro

Calçada

Pouca

et al. 2015

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Seismic response analysis of an interacting curved bridge–train system under frequent earthquakes

Zeng

Dimitrakopoulos

2016

Summary This paper establishes a scheme for the seismic analysis of interacting vehicle–bridge systems. The focus is on (horizontally) curved continuous railway bridges and frequent earthquakes. Main features of the proposed scheme are (i) the treatment of the dynamics in all three dimensions (3D), employing an additional rotating system of reference to describe the dynamics of the vehicles and a realistic 3D bridge model; (ii) the simulation of the creep interaction forces generated by the rolling contact between the wheel and the rail; and (iii) the integration of the proposed scheme with powerful commercial finite element software, during the pre‐processing and post‐processing phases of the analysis. The study brings forward the dynamics of a realistic vehicle–bridge (interacting) system during seismic shaking. For the (vehicle–bridge) case examined, the results verify the favorable damping effect the running vehicles have on the vibration of the deck. By contrast, the study stresses the adverse influence of the earthquake‐induced bridge vibration on the riding comfort but, more importantly, on the safety of the running vehicles. In this context, the paper unveils also a vehicle–bridge–earthquake timing problem, behind the most critical vehicle response, and underlines the need for a probabilistic treatment. Among the 20 sets of historic records examined, the most crucial for the safety of the vehicles are near‐fault ground motions. Finally, the study shows that even frequent earthquakes, of moderate intensity, can threaten the safety of vehicles running on bridges during the ground motion excitation, in accordance with recorded accidents. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Seismic analysis of 3D train–wheel–bridge–bearing systems: Modeling

Gómez

et al. 2023

Bearing effects have not been deeply investigated in the dynamic analysis of a train-bridge coupled system subjected to earthquake motions, and existing studies on base isolation of railway bridges have typically not considered the running train. To fill these gaps, this paper develops the numerical model of a three-dimensional train-wheel-bridge-bearing (TWBB) system for seismic analysis. The substructuring method is implemented to separate the TWBB system into the train, wheel-rail, bridge and bearing subsystems, and couple them using state-space representations. The complete model of the TWBB system has three main features: fewer degrees of freedom (DOF) than traditional finite element methods, applicability to different types of bearings, and simplicity as no iterations in the simulation are required. Therefore, the proposed procedure demonstrates that the TWBB model is an efficient and flexible representation to obtain and predict realistic demands for engineering purposes.