Dynamic responses of simply supported girder bridges to moving vehicular loads based on mathematical methods

For dynamic responses of highway bridges to moving vehicles, most of studies focused on single-factor analysis or multifactor analysis based on full factorial design. The defect of the former one is that it has no consideration of interaction effects, while that of the latter one is that it has large calculation. To avoid these defects, simplified theoretical derivations are presented at first; then some numerical simulations based on the proposed method of the orthogonal experimental design in batches have been done by our own program VBCVA. According to simplified theoretical derivations, three factors (, γ, and α) are proved as the most important factors to determine dynamic responses. Based on the modal synthesis method, the program VBCVA has been introduced in detail. Then on the basis of the orthogonal experimental design, both main effects and interaction effects are studied. The results show that, for different indices of dynamic responses, the influences of each factor are not the same. Additionally, the interaction effects have proved to be so small that they can be neglected. In the end, this method provides a good way to obtain more rational empirical formulas of the DLA and other dynamic responses, which may be adopted in the revision of codes for design and evaluation.