Iterative Method for Predicting Uneven Bridge Approach Settlement (BAS) Caused by Vehicle Loads

With the development of the transportation, the bridge approach settlement (BAS) received great attention which can result in structure deterioration of the bridge and road, costly maintenance, and hazardous driving conditions. Therefore, accurate prediction of BAS is important. In this paper, a methodology using the iterative procedure is presented to predict the long-term BAS. In this method, the dynamic deviator stress is obtained by a 3D finite element road model and the settlement is calculated by an empirical model with the dynamic deviator stress. Then, the settlement is used as the excitation of the vehicle model for updating the load in the 3D road model. After several iterative calculations, the long-term BAS can be obtained. The comparison between the iterative method and the empirical method is presented. Also the parametric study of the empirical equation is performed. A simplified equation considering the iterative procedure is proposed for engineering practice. Computed results showed that the permanent settlement predicted by the iterative method is larger than that calculated by the empirical method. Also, the parameters of the empirical equation have great effects on the settlement prediction. The applicability of the new empirical equation is also proved.