Evaluation of Ride Comfort and Driving Safety for Moving Vehicles on Slender Coastal Bridges

Evaluating driving safety of moving vehicles on slender coastal bridges as well as bridge safety is important to provide supporting data to make decisions on continuing or closing the operations of bridges under extreme weather conditions. However, such evaluations could be complicated due to the complex dynamic interactions of vehicle-bridge-wind-wave (VBWW) system. The present study proposes a comprehensive evaluation methodology on vehicle ride comfort and driving safety on the slender coastal bridges subject to vehicle, wind, and wave loads. After a brief introduction of the VBWW coupling dynamic system and obtaining the dynamic responses of the vehicles, the vehicle ride comfort is evaluated using the advanced procedures as recommended in the ISO 2631-1 standard based on the overall vibration total value (OVTV). The vehicle driving safety is analyzed based on two evaluation criteria, i.e., the roll safety criteria (RSC) and the sideslip safety criteria (SSC), through the vehicle contact force responses at the wheels. Finally, the proposed methodology is applied to a long-span cable-stayed bridge for the vehicle ride comfort and driving safety evaluation.