A Comparison of Different Solution Algorithms for the Numerical Analysis of Vehicle–bridge Interaction

The interaction between a bridge and a train moving on the bridge is a coupled dynamic problem. The equations of motion of the bridge and the vehicle are coupled by the time dependent contact forces. At each time step, the motion of the bridge influences the forces transferred to the vehicle and this, in turn, changes the forces acting on the bridge. In this paper, a comparison of three different time domain solution algorithms for the coupled equation of motion of the train–bridge system is presented. Guidelines are given for a good choice of the time step.