topic Re: SOV load models in Structural Bridge Design Forum

SOV load models

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 17:55:02 GMT

I am assessing a four-span curved continuous in-situ reinforced concrete deck slab for SOV 250 and SOV 350.

Due to the length of these vehicles and the curvature of the bridge, after running the load optimisation for SOV 250 and SOV 350 with associated HA, the resulting combinations superimpose the SOV load models and the HA or place the SOV load models over the verges when these vehicles are applied on their own.

I have therefore moved the SOV load models manually. However, as these are input as rigid units, they need to be straddling between lanes (see screenshots below).

Please can you advise if these can be allowed to be applied as articulated units (i.e. tractor pivoting around the trailer section)?

Thanks,

Sonia

Re: SOV load models

dave_geeves — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 07:26:09 GMT

Hi Sonia,

I haven't tried this yet but I seem to remember that I had a similar problem a few years ago and I managed to get round it by creating two special vehicles, one for the truck and the other for the trailer. I then created a convoy of three vehicles (truck-trailer-truck) and I think that this simulates an articulated vehicle when placed on a curved carriageway. I think this can also be used in the load optimisation as well by selecting the convoy as an AIL.

I haven't time to confirm this at the moment so please let me know if you can get this to work.

Kind regards

Dave Geeves

Re: SOV load models

dave_geeves — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 10:42:44 GMT

Hi Sonia,

further to my last post, I did a small test and my solution seemed to work with making the vehicles articulated, except that applying a convoy in the assessment load optimisation is not available. However, you can run the optimisation for BD37 to get the optimum position of the convoy and then replace the SOV vehicle in the BD86 combination with the convoy at the same location.

I hope this works for you and is so please mark my posts as a solution as others may be able to benefit from this. Thanks

Kind regards

Dave Geeves