Publication

Abstract : In the present paper, dynamic analysis procedure of a single span bridge girder has been outlined when the bridge is subject to a stream of moving loads with random arrival time. The bridge-vehicle coupled dynamic equations are formed considering the vehicles as a quarter car model whose wheels are in contact with random road unevenness. As a result of random arrival time and random pavement irregularity, the damping, stiffness matrices and input force vector contain stochastic variables whose probability distribution functions are Poisson process for arrival time and Gaussian for pavement roughness. Such a complex system has been solved in time domain by orthogonal polynomial series. First and second order statistics have been obtained for the maximum stress in the bridge girder which is subsequently used to calculate dynamic increment factor of the stresses. Parametric studies are conducted to examine the effect of vehicle speed, arrival time and road irregularity.