Theoretical formulation for vehicle-bridge interaction analysis based on perturbation method

A three-mass vehicle model including one rigid mass and two unsprung masses is adopted to predict the vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) and to establish the nonlinear coupled governing equations. To overcome the numerical instability and large computation problems concerning the vehicle-bridge system, the perturbation method is used to convert the nonlinear coupled governing equations into a set of linear uncoupled equations. Formulas for bridge's natural frequencies considering both the VBI and the dynamic responses of bridge and vehicle are proposed. Compared with the numerical results obtained by the Newmark-B method, the theoretical solutions for natural frequencies and dynamic responses are validated. The effects of the important factors of unsprung mass, vehicle damping, surface irregularity on the natural frequencies and dynamic responses of bridge and vehicle are discussed, based on the theoretical solutions.