A Framework for Developing Efficient Vehicle-Bridge Interaction Models Within a Commercial Finite Element Software

The development of vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) models is a popular technique to characterize the dynamic properties of vehicles and bridges. However, there is inherent complexity in the development of VBI models which must account for multibody dynamics of vehicles, structural dynamics of bridges, and vehicle-bridge contact relationships. Within the literature, three distinct frameworks exist for handling the model complexity of VBI: (1) hard coding the equations of motion of the vehicles and bridges while numerically coupling them in an arbitrary programming language; (2) developing a co-simulation that leverages a commercial finite element (FE) software to model the bridge and separately solve for the equations of motion of a vehicle; or (3) develop high-fidelity representations of both the bridge and vehicle through a commercial FE environment alone. While these unique frameworks offer accurate and reliable results, there exists a trade-off between frameworks that require sophisticated coding of the user but result in high computational speed (1 and 2) and frameworks with simple implementation but longer computation times (3). The present study attempts to bridge this gap and formulate a computationally efficient framework for implementing VBI modeling into a commercial FE software (Abaqus). This requires minimal coding by the user and could then be used by both the industrial and the research community. A VBI model of a passenger vehicle traveling across a bridge is modeled using the bicycle model concept and Euler beam element formulations within Abaqus. Robust node-to-surface contact algorithms within Abaqus are implemented to couple the vehicle to the bridge during the analysis. The dynamic responses of both the vehicle and bridge are verified with data from the literature. The study primarily follows a 2D scheme but concludes with a discussion of how these methods can be extended to a 3D scheme.