Formulation of a Basic Building Block Model for Interaction of High Speed Vehicles on Flexible Structures

In traditional analyses of vehicle/structure interaction, especially when there are constraints between vehicle masses and the structure, vehicle nominal motion is prescribed a priori, and therefore unaffected by the structure flexibility. In this paper, a concept of nominal motion is defined, and a methodology is proposed in which the above restriction is removed, allowing the vehicle nominal motion to become unknown, and encompassing the traditional approach as a particular case. General nonlinear equations of motion of a building block model, applicable to both wheel-on-rail and magnetically levitated vehicles, are derived. These equations are simplified to a set of mildly nonlinear equations upon introducing additional assumptions — essentially on small structural deformation. An example is given to illustrate the present formulation.