Numerical investigation on the dynamic performance of steel–concrete composite continuous rigid bridges subjected to moving vehicles

Assembly construction is the main feature of industrialized bridges, and π-shaped section steel–concrete composites that are continuously rigid have been widely used in engineering fields in recent years; however, their dynamic responses and corresponding impact coefficients in positive and negative moment regions need to be further studied. First, considering the interface slip model, we established a finite element model for the π-shaped continuous region section of the steel–concrete composite on the Sutai Expressway Tongfu No. 3 viaduct. Second, the bridge deck unevenness parameters were generated by preparing a MATLAB program with random calculations and were added to the bridge deck as the excitation load along with the vehicle load. Such parameters are defined on the basis of considering the vertical degrees of freedom of the four wheels and of one vehicle rigid body. Finally, we analyzed the displacement or stress impact coefficients as the dynamic response index of the bridge by adjusting the vehicle travel speeds, vehicle weights, interface slip stiffness values, and deck unevenness values. The results show that the change in vehicle travel speed and the change in vehicle load weight have some influence on the change in the dynamic effect of the combined beam, but this change is not significant. Moreover, the unevenness and interface slip strength changes have a large effect on the dynamic effect of the combination beam, which can significantly change the impact coefficient of the combination beam bridge. The worse the unevenness of the bridge deck is, the lower the grade of interface slip for the steel–concrete composite bridges and the higher the impact coefficient. We calculated the recommended impact coefficient values of the steel–concrete composite bridge based on the specifications for various countries, and they range from 1.16 to 1.4; such values are similar to the finite element calculation results.