Computers and Structures 114115 (2013) 2634

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Computers and Structures

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc

Dynamic analysis of coupled vehiclebridge system based on inter-system

iteration method
Nan Zhang , He Xia
School of Civil Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 4 December 2011
Accepted 10 October 2012
Available online 7 November 2012
Keywords:
Vehiclebridge interaction system
Railway bridges
Numerical history integral
Iteration method

a b s t r a c t
An inter-system iteration method is proposed for dynamic analysis of coupled vehiclebridge system. In
this method, the dynamic responses of vehicle subsystem and bridge subsystem are solved separately,
the iteration within time-step is avoided, the computation memory is saved, the programming difculty
is reduced, and it is easy to adopt the commercial structural analysis software for bridge subsystem. The
calculation efciency of the method is discussed by case study and an updated iteration strategy is suggested to improve the convergence characteristics for the proposed method.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The dynamic effect of the vehicle is an important problem in
railway bridge design, especially for high-speed railway and heavy-haul railway bridges. In recent years, the dynamic analysis of
vehiclebridge interaction system has been carried out for lots of
cases to ensure the safety of bridge structure and running train
vehicles and the riding comfort of passengers. For example, the lateral amplitude of steel plate girders with 2040 m spans was found
too large after the raise of train speed during 20002003 in China.
To enhance the lateral stiffness of the girders, Xia et al. [1] performed numerical analysis on vehiclebridge system to over 100
reinforcement measures and decided the nal ones. Through in site
experiments, the reinforcement measures were validated that they
can effectively reduce the lateral amplitude as predicted.
In most of the researches, the vehicle is modeled by the multibody dynamics, while the bridge is modeled by the FEM (nite element method) discretized with the direct stiffness method or the
modal superposition method. In these analyses, the wheelrail
interaction assumptions are quite different, which they can be divided into three categories:
(1) Moving loads. By neglecting the local vibration and the mass
effect, the vehicle can be simplied into a series of moving
loads. The method is widely used in analytical studies and
the cases with low bridge stiffness. Only the bridge model
is adopted in the method and the system can be analyzed
by a time history integral method.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 1051683786; fax: +86 1051684393.
E-mail address: nzhang@bjtu.edu.cn (N. Zhang).
0045-7949/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruc.2012.10.007

(2) Compatible motion relationship. The vehicle and the bridge

are linked with the wheelrail relative motion relationship.
In vertical direction, the wheel-set is commonly assumed
to have the same motion with the track at the wheelrail
contact point. In lateral direction, Xia et al. [1] and Xu
et al. [2] used the hunting movement to dene the wheel
rail relative motion, while Guo et al. [3] took the measured
bogie hunting movement as the lateral system exciter.
(3) Forcemotion relationship. The wheelrail interaction force is
dened as the function of wheelrail relative motion. Zhai
et al. [4] adopted the Kalkers linear theory and the Hertz
contact theory to dene the wheelrail interaction force, in
which the lateral/tangent wheelrail force is the product of
the creep coefcient and the wheelrail relative velocity,
the vertical/normal wheelrail force has a non-linear relationship to wheelrail relative compression deformation.
Zhang et al. [5] simplied the Zhais denition to meet the
linear wheelrail relation both in lateral and vertical directions. Torstensson et al. [6] and Fayos et al. [7] modeled
the rotating wheel-set and derived the wheelrail interaction force by kinematics methods.
Some researches focused on the effect of the parameters in the
vehiclebridge interaction system, including the effects of the ratio
of train/bridge natural frequency, the ratio of train/bridge mass,
the ratio of train/bridge length [8], the track irregularity, the bridge
skewness [9], the bridge stiffness and the bridge damping [10].
The numerical method in solving the vehiclebridge interaction
equations is dependent on the wheelrail interaction assumption.
Gao and Pan [11], Li et al. [12] and Jo et al. [13] modeled the vehicle
and the bridge subsystem separately, and solved them with time

N. Zhang, H. Xia / Computers and Structures 114115 (2013) 2634

history integral method TSI (time-step iteration), where the two

subsystems meet the equivalent equations within each time-step
by iteration. Xia et al. [1], Antolin et al. [14] and Yang and Yau
[15] coupled the two subsystems into global equations with varying coefcients by adopting the wheelrail interaction into the
non-diagonal sub-matrices. Feriani et al. [16] and Shi et al. [17]
used a complete time history iteration method in which the two
subsystems was analyzed separately and linked by an interface
program, but their studies only concerned the vertical interaction
force for highway bridges and trucks.
The lateral and the torsional interaction forces are not necessary
for analysis of highway bridges but are very important for railway
bridges. In this paper, an iteration method for solving the railway
vehiclebridge interaction system is proposed, considering the vertical, lateral and torsional interaction between the bridge and the
railway vehicle, and adopting the track irregularity and the
wheelrail forcemotion relationship (inter-system iteration, ISI).
In the ISI method, rstly, the bridge subsystem is assumed rigid,
while the vehicle motion and wheelrail force histories are solved
by the independent vehicle subsystem for the complete simulation
time; next the bridge motion can be obtained by applying the previously obtained wheelrail force histories to the independent
bridge subsystem. Following, the updated bridge deck motion histories are combined with the track irregularities to form the new
excitation to the vehicle subsystem for the next iteration process,
until the given error threshold is satised.

27

Some measured results indicated that the wheel-set yaw angle

in high-speed trains is much smaller than that in the traditional
trains, partly due to the special structure of yaw dampers mounted
on the high-speed trains, thus the wheel-sets DOF in W direction
(yaw angle) is not considered in the vehicle model.
From assumption (A2), the vehicle subsystem can be considered
as several vehicles separately. Thus the dynamic equations for an
individual vehicle are:

V CV X_ V KV XV PV
MV X

where MV, CV and KV are the mass, damping and stiffness matrices
of the vehicle, which are constant matrices [5]; PV is the force vector; XV is the displacement vector, containing the independent DOFs
of the car-body, the bogies and the wheel-sets. There are 19 independent DOFs and 8 dependent DOFs for a 4-axle vehicle; 21 independent DOFs and 12 dependent DOFs for a 6-axle vehicle. For
example, the displacement vector XV of a 4-axle vehicle is:

XV yC ; zC ; uC ; v C ; wC ; yT1 ; zT1 ; uT1 ; v T1 ; wT1 ; yT2 ; zT2 ; uT2 ; v T2 ;

wT2 ; yW1 ; yW2 ; yW3 ; yW4 T
where the subscript C stands for the car-body, T1 and T2 for the
front and rear bogie, W1 and W2 for the wheel-set linked to the
front bogie, W3 and W4 for the wheel-set linked to the rear bogie,
respectively.
2.2. Bridge model

2. The ISI analysis method for vehiclebridge interaction system

The vehiclebridge interaction system is composed by the vehicle subsystem and the bridge subsystem; the two subsystems are
linked by the wheelrail interaction; the given track irregularity
is taken as an additional system exciter.
The same coordinate systems are adopted for the both subsystems and the track irregularity: X denotes the train running direction,
Z upward, and Y is dened by the right-hand rule. U, V and W denote
the rotational directions about the axes X, Y and Z, respectively.
The coordinate systems of both vehicle and bridge subsystem are
absolute, and they have the same coordinate direction and length
unit. Each rigid body in the vehicle has its independent coordinate
system, with the origin in Y and Z directions at the static equilibrium
position of each rigid body. According to the assumptions in Section 2.1, there is no X-DOF considered in the vehicle subsystem, so
it is no need to dene the origin of coordinates in X direction.
2.1. Vehicle model
The following assumptions are adopted for the vehicle model
and the wheelrail interaction:
(A1) The train runs over the bridge at a constant speed.
(A2) The train can be modeled by several independent vehicles by
neglecting the interaction among them.
(A3) Each vehicle is composed of one car-body, two bogies, four
or six wheel-sets and the spring-damper suspensions
between the components.
(A4) By the Kalkers Linear theory, the lateral (Y) displacement of
the wheel-set is the product of the creep coefcient and the
wheelrail relative velocity.
(A5) By the wheelrail corresponding assumption, the wheel-set
and the rail have the same vertical (Z) and rotational (U) displacements at the wheelrail contact point.
(A6) Each car-body or bogie has ve independent DOFs in directions Y, Z, U, V and W; each wheel-set has 1 independent
DOF in direction Y and 2 dependent DOFs in directions Z and U.

The bridge model can be established by the FEM. The dynamic

equations for the bridge subsystem can be written as:

B CB X_ B KB XB FB
MB X

where MB, CB and KB are the global mass, damping and stiffness
matrices, FB and XB are the force and displacement vectors of the
bridge subsystem, respectively.
It is very important to note that the lumped mass method cannot be adopted for the mass matrix. Because if the diagonal elements related to the torsional (U) DOFs in MB is zero, the
torsional moment of the vehicle may cause unreasonable angular
acceleration for the bridge deck.
In some cases, the modal superposition method may be used in
modeling the bridge subsystem to reduce the number of DOFs. The
equations of the bridge subsystem are expressed as:

B 2n xB X_ B x2 XB UT FB
X
B
B
B

where nB and xB are the damping ratio and circular frequency diagonal matrices, respectively; UB is the modal matrix.
For the same reason, if lumped mass method is adopted, there is
no torsional mode in UB and the torsional moment and angle cannot be included in calculation. Therefore, the consistent mass matrix for the bridge subsystem is used to reect the torsional
dynamic characteristics of the bridge.
2.3. Track irregularity
The track irregularity is the distance of the actual position and
the theoretical position of the rail. According to the denition in
rail engineering, the track irregularities are dened as:

8
yR yL
>
< yI 2
zR zL
zI 2
>
: u zR zL
I

g0

where yL and yR are the lateral irregularities for the left and the right
rail; zL and zR are the vertical irregularities for the left and the right
rail; g0 is the rail gauge; yI, zI and uI are the align (lateral), vertical

28

N. Zhang, H. Xia / Computers and Structures 114115 (2013) 2634

and cross-lever (torsional) track irregularities adopted in the following calculation, respectively.
The track irregularity causes the additional velocity and acceleration of the wheel-set, which can be expressed in a differential
form:

DE
DE
DE
@E
E_ lim
lim
V  lim
V
Dt!0 Dt
Dt!0 DX=V
Dt!0 DX
@X

_
_
_
_
lim DE lim DE V  lim DE V @ E V 2 @E
E
Dt!0 Dt
Dt!0 DX=V
Dt!0 DX
@X
@X

where E stands for the irregularity; V is the train speed.

Fig. 1. The wheelrail interaction force.

2.4. Wheelrail interaction

From assumption (A4), (A5) and (A6), the wheelrail interaction
force has three components in lateral (Y), vertical (Z) and torsional
(U) directions, see Fig. 1.
In Fig. 1, for an individual wheel-set, P1 and P2 are the vertical
interaction force between the bogie and the wheel-set; P3 and P4
are the vertical wheelrail interaction force; P5 is the lateral
wheelrail interaction force; G is the static axle load. Because the
vehicle equations are about the gravity equilibrium position of
the vehicle components, the static axle loads act on the bridge subsystem, but not contribute to the vehicle vibration equations. The
vertical displacements of the upper suspension points 1, 2 and
the lower suspension points 3 and 4 are:

8
z1
>
>
>
<
z2
>
> z3
>
:
z4

zJ id1 v J  b1 uJ

Thus the lateral wheelrail force, P5, is in proportion to the

wheelrail relative velocity and the vehicles velocity terms can
be moved from right-hand to the left-hand in Eq. (1):

V CV CC X_ V KV XV FV
MV X

10

where CC is the additional damping matrix due to the wheelrail

creep force. For a 4-axle vehicle:

zJ id1 v J b1 uJ

zI zB  b1 uI uB

CC

zI zB b1 uI uB

where zJ, uJ and vJ are the bogie displacement in Z, U and V directions; zB and uB are the bridge motions in Z and U directions at
the wheel-set position and can be obtained by solving the bridge
equations; 2b1 is the lateral distance between the two vertical
springs/dampers, see Fig. 1; 2d1 is the longitudinal distance between the two bogies; i = 1, i = 0 and i = 1 for the front, middle
(6-axle case) and rear wheel-set, respectively. Then the forces P1,
P2, P3 and P4 can be expressed as:

8
P1 kZ1 z1  z3 cZ1 z_ 1  z_ 3
>
>
>
>
< P2 kZ1 z2  z4 cZ1 z_ 2  z_ 4

P3 12 bg1 P1 12  bg1 P2 G2 m0 z2I zB  IX0 ugI uB

>
>
0
0
0
>
>
:


P4 12  bg1 P1 12 bg1 P2 G2 m0 z2I zB IX0 ugI uB
0

(A7) The wheelrail normal contact force is taken as the static

wheel load, G/2.
(A8) TB wheel and 60 kg/m rail are considered, which are commonly adopted in Chinese railway system. The contact point
is in a 1:20 cone surface for the TBwheel and in a cylindrical surface with 300 mm radius for the 60 kg/m rail.

0154
I44


11

The force vector FV in Eq. (10) is the sum of all the wheel-sets
effect and can be obtained by the force vector PV in Eq. (1) deducting the creep force. Assuming the ith element in FV is FV,i, the nonzero FV,i elements are:
8
2k
2k
X
X
>
>
>
F V;5k2 2kZ1
zIm zBm 2cZ1
z_ Im z_ Bm
>
>
>
>
m2k1
m2k1
>
>
>
>
2k
2k
>
X
X
>
2
2
<F
uIm uBm 2cZ1 b1
u_ Im u_ Bm
V;5k3 2kZ1 b1
m2k1
m2k1
>
>
>
2k
2k
>
X
X
>
>
>
1m zIm zBm 2cZ1 d1
1m z_ Im z_ Bm
F V;5k4 2kZ1 d1
>
>
>
>
m2k1
m2k1
>
>
:
F V;15m 2f 22 y_ Im y_ Bm =V
12

where kZ1 and cZ1 are the vertical stiffness and damping coefcients
between the bogie and the wheel set, respectively; m0 and IX0 are
the mass and the X-inertia of the wheel-set.
The lateral wheelrail interaction force is dened by the Kalkers linear theory:

y_ W  y_ IL y_ B
y_ W  y_ IR y_ B
f22
V
V
y_ W  y_ I  y_ B
2f 22
V


2f 22 01515
V
0415

P5 f22

where yW is lateral displacement of the wheel-set; f22 is the creep

coefcient, a function of the wheelrail normal contact force, which
is the curvature of radii at the contact points in the wheel tread and
the rail tread; yB is the bridge motion in Y direction at the wheel-set
position and can be obtained by solving the bridge equations.
By assumptions (A7) and (A8) as follows, the creep coefcient
f22 is a constant:

where k = 1 and k = 2 stand for the front and the rear bogie; m = 1
and m = 2 stand for the wheel-sets linked to the front bogie; m = 3
and m = 4 stand for the wheel-sets linked to the rear bogie. The subscripts Im and Bm refer to the track irregularity and the bridge motion at the wheel-set m position.
The four expressions in Eq. (12) reect the Y, Z and U forces acting on bogies and the Y force acting on wheel-sets. The force vector
FB in Eqs. (2) and (3) also can be obtained by summing the effect of
all the wheel-sets of all the vehicles, the contribution of the mth
wheel-set linked to the kth bogie is in Y, Z and U directions is expressed as:
8
F
2f 22 y_ Wm  y_ Im  y_ Bm =V
>
>
> B;km;Y
>
< F B;km;Z 2kZ1 zJk 1m v Jk  zIm  zBm  2kZ1 z_ Jk 1m
>
> v_ Jk  z_ Im  z_ Bm   G  m0 zIm zBm
>
>
:
2
2
Im u
Bm
F B;km;U 2kZ1 b1 uJk  uIm  uBm 2cZ1 b1 u_ Jk  u_ Im  u_ Bm  IX0 u
13

N. Zhang, H. Xia / Computers and Structures 114115 (2013) 2634

2.5. Interaction equations and inter-system iteration

The dynamic equilibrium equations for the vehiclebridge
interaction system can be formed by the equations of the vehicle
subsystem and the bridge subsystem. When the direct stiffness
method is adopted for the bridge, the interaction equations are:

8
V1 CV1 CC1 X_ V1 KV1 XV1 FV1
MV1 X
>
>
>
>
CV2 CC2 X_ V2 KV2 XV2 FV2
>
>
M X
>
< V2 V2
..
.
>
>
>
>
Vn CVn CCn X_ Vn KVn XVn FVn
> MVn X
>
>
:
B CB X_ B KB XB FB
MB X

14

where n is the vehicles number of the train. The rst n equations in

Eq. (14) are for the vehicle subsystem, the last equation is for the
bridge subsystem.
The mass, damping, stiffness and additional damping matrices
in the left-hand side of Eq. (14) are constants. The force vector
FVi is the function of yIm, zIm, uIm, yBm, zBm and uBm in Eq. (12), with
the subscript Im indicating the track irregularity and Bm the bridge
motion, respectively. The force vector FB is the function of the
above exciters and the vehicle motion in Eq. (13), with the subscript Wm indicating the wheel set motion and Jk the bogie motion, respectively. Thus Eq. (14) are coupled and can be solved by
an iteration procedure.
For the iteration strategies TSI and ISI, the iteration procedures
are compared in Fig. 2.
The wheelrail interaction force histories are adopted for the
convergence check in ISI, because they reect the dynamic status
of both the vehicle and the bridge. The operation of ISI consists
of the following procedures:

29

Step 1: Solve the vehicle subsystem by assuming the bridge subsystem rigid, setting the bridge motion to zero, and using
the track irregularities as the excitation, to obtain the time
histories of wheelrail forces/moments for all wheel-sets;
Step 2: Solve the bridge subsystem by applying the wheelrail
interaction force histories obtained in the previous iteration loop (or Step 1) on bridge deck, to obtain the updated
time histories of bridge deck movement at all joints;
Step 3: Solve the vehicle subsystem by combining the updated
bridge deck movements obtained in Step 2 with the track
irregularities as the updated system excitation, to obtain
the updated time histories of wheelrail forces/moments
for all wheel-sets;
Step 4: Calculate the errors between the updated wheelrail interaction force histories of all the wheel-sets obtained in Step
3 and those in the previous iteration loop (or Step 1) for
the convergence check;
If the maximum instantaneous absolute differences for all
wheel-sets in the whole integral time satisfy the given threshold,
the convergence check is OK, meaning the calculation is completed; otherwise, return to Step 2 to start a next iteration loop.
This iteration procedure is completely different to that of TSI. In
TSI, the vehicle subsystem and the bridge subsystem are solved
simultaneously through the iteration process in each time-step,
and the convergence check is upon the dynamic responses at the
end of each time-step. While in ISI, the two subsystems are solved
separately over the complete simulation time in each iteration
loop, and the convergence check is performed afterwards using
the continuously updated histories of wheelrail forces/moments
until the error threshold is satised.
Based on the wheelrail interaction assumption, the wheelrail
interaction force is the function of the wheelrail relative motion.

Fig. 2. Iteration procedures of TSI (left) and ISI (right).

30

N. Zhang, H. Xia / Computers and Structures 114115 (2013) 2634

Fig. 3. Illustration of ISI.

Table 1
Vehicle parameters.

Item

Value (m)

Item

Value

Distance of wheel-sets
Distance of bogies
Transverse spana of primary suspension
Transverse span of secondary suspension
Car-body to secondary suspension
Secondary suspension to bogie
Bogie to wheel-set
Wheel radius
Wheel-set mass
Wheel-set X-inertia
Bogie mass
Bogie X-inertia
Bogie Y-inertia
Bogie Z-inertia
Car-body mass

2.50
17.50
2.00
2.00
0.80
0.20
0.10
0.43
2t
2t  m2
3t
3t  m2
8t  m2
8t  m2
40t

Car-body, X-inertia
Car-body, Y-inertia
Car-body Z-inertia
Primary suspension X-damp/side
Primary suspension Y-damp/side
Primary suspension Z-damp/side
Secondary suspension X-damp/side
Secondary suspension Y-damp/side
Secondary suspension Z-damp/side
Primary suspension X-spring/side
Primary suspension Y-spring/side
Primary suspension Z-spring/side
Secondary suspension X-spring/side
Secondary suspension Y-spring/side
Secondary suspension Z-spring/side

100t  m2
1500t  m2
2500t  m2
0
0
20 kN s/m
60 kN s/m
60 kN s/m
30 kN-s/m
5000 kN/m
5000 kN/m
800 kN/m
200 kN/m
200 kN/m
200 kN/m

Transverse span: the transverse distance between the spring/damper in suspension system, b1 is shown in Fig. 1.

Table 2
Bridge parameters.
Beam type

fH/Hz

fV/Hz

G1/kN m1

G2/kN m1

IX/m4

High-speed railway beam (A)

Speed-raised railway beam (B)
Common railway beam (C)
Common railway low-height beam (D)

15
6
3
2.5

7
5
4
3

170
130
110
80

80
50
40
40

25
0.06
0.05
0.03

The masses, damping and stiffness of both vehicle and bridge are
quite large, while the energy inputted to the vehiclebridge interaction system is limited, which cannot excite intense vibration in
high frequency, so the high frequency components in the wheel
rail force are small. Without importing the numerical dissipation,
the Newmark-b method is adopted in solving the vehicle and the
bridge subsystems, with c = 1/2 and b = 1/4.
It can be seen in Fig. 2 that the ISI method is simpler in iteration
procedure. The convergent results can be obtained in each iteration
step when an unconditionally convergent iteration method is used.
But ISI is not an unconditionally convergent procedure. The divergent results may be found even when an unconditional convergent
iteration method is used in solving the vehicle and the bridge subsystems, which will be found in Section 3. Also in Ref. [18], in which
it is concluded that a convergent result cannot be obtained for the
coupled vehiclebridge system even by using a smaller time-step

when the wheelrail interaction is dened by the wheelrail relative motion, such as the Assumption (A5) in this paper.
One of the main advantages of adopting ISI is that the commercial structural analysis software can be used for the bridge subsystem, it is equivalent to solve Eqs. (2) or (3), making the analysis
easier and more accurate. While for TSI, it is difcult to invoke
external programs within the time-step, thus the matrices of
bridge must be calculated explicitly.
The vehicles are coupled through the bridge and must be solved
simultaneously, which may lead larger memory consuming and
programming difculty in TSI. While for ISI, the vehicles run on a
constant system exciter and can be analyzed separately, with the
equilibrium equations of Eq. (10). The method of ISI is illustrated
in Fig. 3.
The mass, damping and stiffness of each DOF in the vehicle and
the bridge subsystems are quite large, so the high frequency

31

N. Zhang, H. Xia / Computers and Structures 114115 (2013) 2634

Fig. 4. Lateral, vertical and torsional track irregularity samples.

Fig. 5. Initial and nal positions of the vehicle traveling through the bridge.

component is small in the vehiclebridge interaction system. The

convergent result can be obtained in several iteration steps. While
for some other problems with multi coupling subsystem (other
than the problem of vehiclebridge system), it may become difcult to get the convergent result by the ISI method owing to the
high frequency components in vibration. The problem can be
partly solved by using a smaller time-step or larger threshold in
convergence check, or adopting the numerical dissipation to reduce the high frequency vibration articially.

is the inertia moment of beam section about X-axis, respectively.

All the four types of beams are straight ones with single-bound
track laid along the centerline of the bridge. The beam is divided
into 32 spatial beam elements of 1 m in length, which is restrained
in X, Y, Z and U directions at the xed support and in Y, Z and U
directions at the movable support. The motion equations of the
bridge subsystem are expressed by the direct stiffness method, as
in Eq. (14). Thus the total DOF number of the bridge subsystem is
33 6  7 = 191. By adopting the Poissons ratio 0.2, the torsional

3. Case study and discussion

3.1. General information of cases
For simplicity, an individual vehicle and a bridge with single
span beam are analyzed in this section. The parameters of the vehicle and the bridge are listed in Tables 1 and 2, respectively.
The vehicle parameters are not from a certain type of train. Four
types of beams are considered for the bridge, which are all prestressed and single bound, 32 m in span. Beam A is box-sectional,
while Beam B, C and D are T-sectional. In Table 2, fH and fV are
the lateral and vertical fundamental frequency, G1 is the beam
weight per unit length, G2 is the secondary weight (including the
rail structure and the additional devices) per unit length, and IX

Table 3
Responses of vehiclebridge subsystem of ISI and TSI.
Item

Beam A

Beam B

Beam C

Beam D

Mid span lateral disp./mm

Mid span vertical disp./mm
Mid span torsional disp./mrad
Mid span lateral acc./m s2
Mid span vertical acc./m s2
Mid span torsional acc./m s2
Lateral w/r force/kN
Vertical w/r force/kN
Torsional w/r moment/kN m
Car-body lateral acc./m s2
Car-body vertical acc./m s2

0.010
0.432
0.001
0.082
0.050
0.012
10.43
144.5
15.61
0.175
0.121

0.029
1.204
0.027
0.056
0.100
0.174
10.40
144.6
15.51
0.176
0.119

0.079
2.345
0.072
0.106
0.193
0.487
10.27
144.4
15.50
0.172
0.117

0.125
5.104
0.137
0.111
0.357
0.767
10.38
144.9
15.20
0.171
0.114

32

N. Zhang, H. Xia / Computers and Structures 114115 (2013) 2634

Fig. 6. Lateral displacement history of bridge mid span using ISI (left) and TSI (right).

Fig. 7. Vertical displacement history of bridge mid span using ISI (left) and TSI (right).

fundamental frequencies of Beam A, B, C and D are 20.78 Hz,

2.54 Hz, 3.97 Hz and 4.40 Hz, respectively.
The track irregularity data generated from the German Low Disturb Spectrum is adopted; the power spectrum density is expressed in Eq. (15).

8
Aa X2c
>
>
> Sa X X2 X2r X2 X2c
>
<
2
Sv X X2 XA2vXXc 2 X2
r
c
>
>
>
>
Av b2 X2c X2
: S X
c
2
2
2
2
X X X X X2 X2
r

15

where Sa(X), Sv(X) and Sc(X) are align, vertical and cross-lever
irregularities, respectively, with Sa(X) and Sv(X) in m2/(rad/m)
and Sc(X) in 1/(rad/m). The parameters are taken as Xc = 0.8246
rad/m, Xr = 0.0206 rad/m, Xs = 0.4380 rad/m, Aa = 2.119  107
cm2 rad/m, Av = 4.032 cm2 rad/m, b = g0/2 = 0.7465 m. X is the
spatial angular frequency calculated by X = 2p/Lt, where Lt is the
wavelength of the track irregularity, ranging from 1 m to 80 m.

The maximum value for the lateral (Y), vertical (Z) and torsional
(U) irregularities adopted in the case study are 7.57 mm, 7.15 mm
and 4.79 mrad, respectively. The samples of irregularity are shown
in Fig. 4.
The complete histories of the train traveling through the bridge
are analyzed, with the train speed of 120 km/h, the damping ratio
of the bridge 0.02, and the time-step 0.005 s. The initial and nal
positions of the train are shown in Fig. 5.
It must be pointed that the ISI method, since it adopts the direct
time integration for both the two subsystems, has its inherent ltering characteristics. Thus the system with high frequency vibration may be underestimated when the time-step length or the
element size is not small enough in the calculation. In the case
study, the bridge in simplied into 191 DOFs, the maximum
(191st) frequencies of Beam A, B, C and D are 78.1 kHz, 31.3 kHz,
20.8 kHz and 15.6 kHz, respectively. The time-step is 0.005 s or
the calculated sampling frequency is 200 Hz. They are enough to
meet the accuracy requirement for a railway engineering problem.
Of course, it is assumed in (A5) that theres no relative motion between the wheel-set and the bridge, which may lead to the local

Fig. 8. Torsional displacement histories of bridge mid span using ISI (left) and TSI (right).

33

N. Zhang, H. Xia / Computers and Structures 114115 (2013) 2634

Table 4
Number of iteration steps.
Beam
Beam
Beam
Beam
Beam

A
B
C
D

ISI
Steps

ISI
Iteration N.

TSI
Max steps

TSI
Min steps

TSI
Iteration N.

4
4
5
8

1252
1252
1565
2504

5
5
6
10

2
3
3
6

1203
1279
1449
2712

Fig. 9. Lateral displacement histories of bridge motion and track irregularity.

Fig. 10. Vertical displacement histories of bridge motion and track irregularity.

Fig. 11. Vertical velocity histories of bridge motion and track irregularity.

considered in maximum value statistics. For the methods of TSI

and ISI, the maximum responses of the bridge mid span and vehicle
car-body are listed in Table 3, in which the ISI and TSI have the
same results. The classic displacement histories when the vehicle
transverses Beam D are shown in Figs. 68.
It is found from Table 3 that the dynamic responses of bridge
decrease with the bridge stiffness increasing. The wheelrail interaction force and the car-body acceleration vary quite little for different beams, because the bridge motion contributes very little to
the wheel-set motion, compared to the track irregularity does, as
shown in Figs. 913, which indicate the relative proportion of the
bridge motion (solid line) and the track irregularity (dotted line)
at the 1st wheel-set position when the train traverses the Beam D.
From the above gures, it is found that the irregularities are
much larger than the bridge motion in the lateral and torsional displacements, while the bridge motion has relative larger proportion
in the vertical displacement, but it is in quite low frequency and
has small effect on the wheelrail interaction force or the vehicle
response. In vertical velocity and acceleration history, the irregularities are still much larger the bridge motion.
3.3. Inuence of iteration step number

Fig. 12. Vertical acceleration histories of bridge motion and track irregularity.

Fig. 13. Torsional displacement histories of bridge motion and track irregularity.

vertical vibration underestimated. Therefore, if only the macro motion status of the vehicle and the bridge are concerned, the proposed model is acceptable, but if the local motion is also
concerned, the more accurate wheelrail interaction assumption
must be used.
3.2. Iteration process and result analysis
The maximum instantaneous absolute difference thresholds are
10 N for the lateral and vertical wheelrail force and 10 N m for the
torsional wheelrail moment for each wheel-set and at each timestep.
Only in the time period when the wheel-sets or the car-body are
coupled with the bridge, the wheelrail force and acceleration are

The iteration numbers of ISI and TSI are shown in Table 4, where
only the step numbers when the vehicle and the bridge are coupled
(from Step 181 to 493) are taken into account. The column Iteration N. refers to the total number of iterations between steps 181
and 493 for both the methods. It is obvious that the ISI and TSI have
similar iteration steps in the four cases. In other words, they have
similar calculation efciency.
Wu [18] proved the wheelrail displacement compatibility condition is the main reason of divergence, and the additional mass in
both sides of the system equations is helpful to get the convergent
result for the vehiclebridge interaction system. It implies that the
bridge mass affects the number of iteration steps to meet the convergence check. The difference of bridge stiffness causes input
exciters difference between time-steps for the vehicle subsystem
and may also lead to different convergent conditions. Thus, further
analysis is performed for the cases with different bridge distributed mass and bridge stiffness. The number of iteration steps for
different masses and stiffnesses are shown in Fig. 14, where 10
100% of stiffness and 30100% of distributed mass of Beam D are
concerned.
It is found that the number of iteration steps increases with decrease of distributed mass, from 8 with 100% mass to 23 with 30%
mass. The relationship between the iteration number and the
stiffness is not monotonic. When the bridge mass is over 40%,
the number of iteration steps changes little with the bridge
stiffness, while when the bridge mass is 30%, the number of iteration steps increases obviously with the stiffness, from 17 with 10%
stiffness to 23 with 100% stiffness.
3.4. Convergence strategy
For the cases with 1020% of distributed mass for Beam D, the
iteration procedure is divergent, no matter ISI or TSI is used. It is

34

N. Zhang, H. Xia / Computers and Structures 114115 (2013) 2634

(1) Comparing to traditional methods, the iteration within timestep is avoided in ISI, so it is convenient to use the commercial structural analysis software for the bridge subsystem
instead of calculating the bridge matrices directly, each vehicle can be analyzed separately, the computation memory is
saved, and the programming difculty is reduced.
(2) An updated iteration strategy is proposed for ISI to improve
the convergent characteristics in solving the vehiclebridge
interaction system, in which the wheelrail force acting on
the bridge subsystem is regarded as a linear combination
of the wheelrail force calculated from the vehicle subsystem in current and previous iteration steps.
(3) In the ISI method, more iteration step number is needed to
meet the convergence check when the bridge has smaller
distributed mass.

Acknowledgements
Fig. 14. Iteration step number with different bridge coefcients.

Table 5
Iteration steps versus distributed mass and combination factor.
Distributed mass

k=1

k = 0.5

k = 0.2

k = 0.1

30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%

23
192
Divergence
Divergence
Divergence
Divergence

14
15
18
21
33
Divergence

32
36
42
48
58
118

64
71
82
95
112
218

References

common to illustrate that the convergent characteristics is decided

by the convergent radius: if the evaluated system response is
within the convergent region, or the error is small enough, the convergent result must be obtained by iteration, otherwise the iteration is divergent.
When the difference of the evaluated response between two
time-steps is too large, the convergent region may be missed. In order to reduce the step length to meet the convergent region; or to
avoid skipping it, the wheelrail force acted on the bridge subsystem in step N can be regarded as a linear combination of the
wheelrail force calculated from the vehicle subsystem in step N
and step N  1:
V

F BN kF N 1  kF VN1

The research is sponsored by the Major State Basic Research

Development Program of China (973 Program: 2013CB036203),
the 111 project (Grant No. B13002), the National Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51178025 and 50838006) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No.
2009JBZ016-4).

16

where F BN is the wheelrail force acted on the bridge subsystem in

step N, which stands for the interaction force of any wheel-set in
any direction. F VN and F VN1 are the wheelrail forces calculated from
the vehicle subsystem in step N and step N  1, respectively.
0 < k 6 1 is the combination factor, and k = 1 is adopted in the calculations. The number of iteration steps for the beams with 100%
stiffness and 530% distributed mass of Beam D are listed in Table 5.
The relationship between k and the number of iteration steps is
quite complex, but it can be seen that the smaller combination factor k helps to get a convergent result. However, smaller k also
causes smaller updating of the evaluated response value, which
may need more iteration steps to meet the convergence check.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, an inter-system iteration method (ISI) is proposed
for dynamic analysis of coupled vehiclebridge system, whose result is very close to the widely-used time-step iteration method
(TSI). The characteristics of ISI are as follows:

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