ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: High speed railway bridges can now be designed using the new European standards “Eurocodes for construction”. Many rules and recommendations concerning Service Limit States, actions and calculations are given in two main parts of these Eurocodes: – Eurocode EN 1990 AnnexA2 and EN 1991 – Part 2 section 6 «railway bridges». These two standards resume research works based upon the experience in the high speed field of different European railway companies (among them SNCF and DB) unified in the UIC organisation. These works have been put together and published into UIC codes (UIC leaflets). This lecture first recalls the Eurocodes rules in the dynamics field and then gives some background information concerning those rules: – Why static calculations are no more sufficient to model the effects of a train running across a railway bridge?; – how to decide whether dynamic analysis is required?; – how to model the bridge and trains running on tracks over bridges?; – what are the criteria for a good behaviour of the structures (vehicles, track and bridges). This background information is mainly based upon SNCF experience. Some other dynamic model problems are presented and, in conclusions, future research topics are identified.
