Vibration of Suspension Bridges under Vehicular Movement

A continuum analysis for determining the flexural‐torsional vibration of suspension bridge under vehicular movement is presented. The dynamic analysis duly considers the nonlinear bridge‐vehicle interactive force, eccentricity of vehicle path, surface irregularity of the bridge pavement, cable‐tower connection and end conditions for the stiffening girder. The surface irregularity of the bridge pavement is considered as a stationary random process characterized by a power spectral density function (PSDF) of the surface irregularity. The irregular profile of the bridge pavement is synthetically generated from the PSDF using Monte Carlo simulation technique. The analysis makes use of normal mode theory and calculates the response in time domain utilizing an iterative scheme and a few closed‐form expressions. The responses are obtained and compared for three types of vehicle models, namely, 3‐D, 2‐D, and single sprung mass system. A parametric study is also conducted to investigate the influence of some important bridge and vehicle parameters on the dynamic behavior of the bridge.