Computational model on influence of prestress level on vehicle-bridge coupled vibrations

The box girder bridges constructed by prestressing the girders have been widely adopted to avoid the high dead load of the girders and for better performance during the service life. The loss of prestress may affect its performance and service life. Hence proper monitoring of such bridges with minimum efforts are useful for maintenance of the bridge. The correct estimation of the Impact Factor due to vehicle bridge interaction force is essential for designing such bridges. The presence of prestress in bridges influences the responses of bridges and vehicles moving over them. This paper provides the results of the finite element analysis of dynamic interaction between a vehicle and a simply supported pre-stressed box beam bridge. The interaction was conducted using ABAQUS software. Numerical simulations were conducted to show the effects of vehicle speed and road surface roughness profile on the mid-span displacement responses of the internal and external pre-stress box beams of the bridges. Thereafter, the influence of important parameters, namely, pre-stress force, road surface condition, and vehicle speed on the impact factor was investigated. Furthermore, it has been found that the maximum vertical vehicle acceleration response is sensitive to the prestress level and could be used to detect the percentage of prestress.