Abstract
Railway bridge KW51 in Leuven, Belgium, has been monitored since October 2018 with the aim of validating various structural health monitoring techniques. The displacement and strain measurements on the structure show a nonlinear behavior, which is attributed to friction in the pot bearings. This paper describes and validates a methodology that allows the observed nonlinear behavior of the pot bearings to be modeled. This is important for understanding and reproducing the bridge behavior under combined train and thermal loading as in, e.g., virtual sensing applications. To this end, a previously developed detailed linear finite-element model of the bridge superstructure is augmented with nonlinear Bouc–Wen elements, representing the bearings. A comparison between the measured and predicted bearing displacements under train loading shows a significant improvement of the response prediction in comparison with the case where the bearings are modeled as roller supports, as assumed in the design. In addition, it is also shown that the model enables a qualitative description of the thermal bridge response.
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Acknowledgments
This work was performed within the frame of the project C16/17/008 “Efficient methods for large-scale PDE-constrained optimization in the presence of uncertainty and complex technological constraints” funded by KU Leuven. The financial support by KU Leuven is gratefully acknowledged. Kristof Maes is a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Belgium (Grant Number 12Q9218N). FWO also provided additional funding for the measurements on railway bridge KW51 by means of research grant 1511719N. The financial support by FWO is gratefully acknowledged. The authors express their gratitude to Infrabel NV/SA for providing access to the KW51 bridge that served as the test structure in this study.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 28 • Issue 6 • June 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 27, 2022
Accepted: Feb 18, 2023
Published online: Apr 13, 2023
Published in print: Jun 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Sep 13, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Bridge engineering
- Bridges
- Bridges (by type)
- Continuum mechanics
- Displacement (mechanics)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering mechanics
- Infrastructure
- Methodology (by type)
- Nonlinear response
- Rail transportation
- Railroad bridges
- Research methods (by type)
- Skew bridges
- Solid mechanics
- Stress (by type)
- Structural analysis
- Structural behavior
- Structural engineering
- Structural mechanics
- Thermal loads
- Thermal properties
- Thermodynamics
- Transportation engineering
- Validation
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