Browsing by Author "Rugemalira, Eric"

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    Identification of Vulnerable Zones on Steel Railway Bridges
    (2023) Rugemalira, Eric; Moyo, Pilate
    This research presents the static and dynamic analyses of steel railway bridges subjected to the action of moving trains on the Crocodile, Kalbaskraal, and Van Staden railway bridges located in the Western Cape. The parameters of the bridges were taken from the existing desktop information. Numerical simulations of these bridges were performed using different load models; static forces, series of moving forces, and series of moving single mass. The research was to identify the hotspots on the 3 steel railway bridges i.e. crocodile, Kalbaskraal, and Van Stadens by determining the static and dynamic responses under a moving train. For this purpose, three-dimensional finite element models of the steel railway bridges were constructed. The static analyses of the bridges were performed under the self-weight and static train load of each bridge. The dynamic analyses of the bridges consisted of (a) modal analysis to determine the mode shapes and natural frequencies and (b) analysis to obtain a dynamic response of the bridges under a moving train. Results obtained from the simulations of the load models of the railway bridges are tabulated and discussed in Chapter 5 of this thesis. The result outputs of this work can, later on, give a guide for bridge inspectors while performing bridge inspections on (steel) railway bridges, but it should not be enough as only three railway bridge types have been discussed in this thesis hence, it is recommended that further research and modeling of railway bridge types should be performed to broaden the inspections sector of various railway bridges. Keywords: Hotspots, Steel Railway bridge, Bridge Inspections, dynamic analysis, modal analysis, Finite element modeling.