Dynamical analysis on a two dimensional nonlinear vehicle-pavement system

The vehicle and pavement are usually investigated separately in vehicle dynamics and pavement dynamics. In this work, a new research scheme is proposed to link the vehicle and pavement model by tire loads and compute the nonlinear dynamic responses by analytical methods. A two-DOF nonlinear vehicle and a Bernoulli-Euler beam on a nonlinear elastic foundation with two simply supported ends compose the nonlinear vehicle-pavement system. The nonlinear tire loads are analytically gained using the averaging method. Then the nonlinear vibration equation of the pavement is obtained using Galerkin method and solved using the multiple scales method. The theoretical solutions are verified by numerical results and the effects of system parameters on pavement vibration are also studied. It is found that the pavement responses excited by tire loads attenuate quickly and small pavement mass, large foundation damping or foundation stiffness may decrease the pavement vibration.