Analysis of bridge-vehicle interaction by component-mode synthesis method

In this paper, the dynamic interaction between a running train, the railway track structure and the supporting bridge is investigated resorting to substructure technique. The train is idealised as a sequence of identical vehicles moving at constant speed. Both the rails and the bridge are modelled as Bernoulli-Euler beams, while the ballast is characterised as a Winkler elastic foundation. The motion equations of the compound train-rails-bridge system are here derived and reduced by applying a variant of the component-mode synthesis method. It is also shown that by integrating the reduced equations of motion, the dynamic responses of the train, rails and bridge can be simultaneously handled.