Flexible structures (such as long-span suspension bridges which undergo wind or earthquake excitations) exhibit complex dynamic behavior. Due to high cost of strengthening such structures, as well as the technological advances in recent years, much attention has been given to using innovative means of enhancing structural functionality and safety against natural hazards. Among the methods used ...

This paper presents a method for modeling and analysis of cablestayed bridges under the action of moving vehicles. Accurate and efficient finite elements are used for modeling the bridge structure. A beam element is adopted for modeling the girder and the pylons. Whereas, a two-node catenary cable element derived using exact analytical expressions for the elastic catenary, is adopted for modeli...

In this paper, the effects of using semi-active control strategy (such as MR dampers) in vehicle suspensions on the coupled vibrations of a vehicle traversing a bridge are examined in order to develop various designs of smart suspension systems for bridge-friendly vehicles. The bridge-vehicle coupled system is modeled as a simply supported beam traversed by a two-degree-of-freedom quarter-car m...

As one of the main characteristics of seismic waves, apparent wave velocity has great influence on seismic responses of long-span suspension bridges. Understanding these influences is important for seismic design. In this article, the critical issues concerning the traveling wave effect analysis are first reviewed. Taizhou Bridge, the longest triple-tower suspension bridge in the world, is then...