Keywords: bridge dynamics, high-speed traffic, vehicle-bridge-interaction, locomotive.

This short paper evaluates and discusses the dynamic response of single-span bridges under high-speed railway traffic and the influence of the locomotive on resonance-induced speed-dependent acceleration peaks. Prior large-scaled studies investigated different calculation models for the dynamic behavior of railway bridges to determine the influence of vehicle-bridge-interaction. However, the locomotives were not included in these load models. The impact of this neglect was studied by a comparative study conducted at the Institute of Structural Engineering at the TU Wien. Numerical analyses developed in this study investigate which characteristics of the bridge structures and vehicles are particularly critical for a significant influence on the maximum vertical accelerations and how great the influence of the locomotive becomes. The analyses were based on two train models of an in the ÖBB rail network operating Railjet, which either depict the actual train configuration including two locomotives or replace the locomotives with two additional passenger cars. A parameter study examines the impact of the locomotive on a wide range of bridge structures. Furthermore, the train configuration used in the calculations was modeled as a series of moving axle loads as well as a multi-body system that considers the vehicle-bridge-interaction. This study indicates that the parameter field of bridges can be divided into subsections, which are differentiated by the probability of the occurrence of different resonance scenarios. For each subsection, geometric properties of the locomotives that have a beneficial or unfavorable impact on the relevant acceleration peaks can be found. In addition, the comparison of the calculation results obtained with load models of different complexity shows that the less sophisticated Moving Load Model can result in uneconomical or even unsafe results regarding the influence of the locomotive.

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