Nonlinear behaviour of damaged concrete bridge structures under moving vehicular loads

Abstract

Recently, there has been increased interest in using non-linear vibration techniques to detect damage in concrete bridge structures, It is necessary to understand the nonlinear behavior of concrete structures under vibration loading for damage detection, In this paper, a damage beam element is developed 10 analyze the non-linear dynamic behavior of damaged concrete bridge structures subject to moving vehicular loads, The damage is modeled as a combination of a rotational spring and shear effect due to the concrete cracking and local bond deterioration of the concrete-steel interface. Numerical simulations are presented to study the damage effects on the dynamic behavior of concrete bridge structures under moving vehicular loads. The results show that the model is reliable and effective to describe the damage in the concrete bridge structures.