Dynamic Interaction of Heavy Duty Vehicles and Expansion Joints

The “Smart Bridge (Intelligente Brucke)” project cluster, initiated by the German Federal Highway Research Institute (Bundesanstalt fur Strasenwesen, BASt) and the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), focuses on “smart” monitoring devices that allow an efficient and economic maintenance management of bridge infrastructures. Among the participating projects, the one presented herein focuses on the development of a smart expansion joint, to assess the traffic parameters on site. This is achieved by measuring velocity and weight of crossing vehicles. In reference measurements, performed with a three-axle truck and a typical tractor semi-trailer combination with five axles in total, it was shown that the interaction between the vehicle and the expansion joint is highly dynamic and depends on several factors. To get more insight into this dynamic problem, a virtual test rig was set up. Although nearly all vehicle parameters had to be estimated, the simulation results conform very well with the measurements and are robust to vehicle parameter variations. In addition, they indicate a significant influence of the expansion joint dynamic to the peak values of the measured wheel loads, in particular on higher driving velocities. By compensating the relevant dynamic effects in the measurements, a “smart” data processing algorithm makes it possible to determine the actual vehicle weights in random traffic with reliability and appropriate accuracy.