High-speed train-track-bridge dynamic interactions - Part I: theoretical model and numerical simulation

This paper presents a framework to systematically investigate the high-speed train-track-bridge dynamic interactions, aiming to provide a method for analysing and assessing the running safety and the ride comfort of trains passing through bridges, which are critically important for the design of new high-speed railway bridges. Train-track-bridge interactive mechanism is illustrated. A fundamental model is established for analysing the train-track-bridge dynamic interactions, in which the vehicle subsystem is coupled with the track subsystem through a spatially interacted wheel-rail model; and the track subsystem is coupled with the bridge subsystem by a track-bridge dynamic interaction model. Modelling of each subsystem and each interactive relationship between subsystems are presented. An explicit-implicit integration scheme is adopted to numerically solve the equations of motion of the large non-linear dynamic system in the time domain. Computer simulation software named the train-track-bridge interaction simulation software (TTBSIM) is developed to predict the vertical and lateral dynamic responses of the train-track-bridge coupled system.