Modeling the vehicle-bridge interaction in the conditions of road level deformation

Abstract: The paper presents a method and results of numerical simulations of dynamic interactions between vehicles and the bridge structure, which has defects in the form of excessive permanent deflections of their spans. The simulation analyzes were carried out on the example of a real motorway bridge, on which the presence of such defects was found. A typical 5-axle truck with a total weight of 40 tons was modeled as a moving load. During the analyzes, the main attention was paid to the values of vertical displacements and accelerations of vibrations of the bridge spans generated by heavy vehicles as a function of the intensity of permanent deflections of the structure and the vehicles speed. Keywords: Dynamic analysis of bridges; Bridge vibrations; Finite Element Method; Structure deformations