Messina Strait Bridge - Safety and Comfort Runability Analysis

A detailed study of safety and comfort runability aspects for real trains passing the planned Messina Strait Bridge has been carried out. The assessment of these issues are considered extremely essential for a conclusion of the technical feasibility of the 3.300 m long free span suspension bridge, since it will be the world record length for suspension bridges carrying rail traffic.

For complicated bridge designs, especially with long spans, the tasks of modelling train/bridge dynamics under seismic loads and cross turbulent wind can be very challenging.

This paper shows how train runability has been checked through global analyses using IBDAS code, a 3D FE integrated vehicle-bridge model and ADTreS code allowing for direct dynamic train- bridge interaction global and local analysis. Runability requirements and load combinations are reported and some meaningful results are showed.