ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: European codes recommend an independent nonlinear treatment of three significant loading cases in order to calculate longitudinal forces in continuously welded rails on bridgedecks: Temperature change along one year, braking/accelerating and finally bending of the bridge deck. The final rail-stresses are obtained by summing up the different values found independently. This is against the nonlinear character of the problem. An additional effect concerns the change of the longitudinal coupling stiffness between railway and bridge deck when a train passes the bridge. This contribution focuses on a true nonlinear combinationof all loading cases andon the influence
of the longitudinal stiffness change. As this change occurs in a rather short time, mass-acceleration forces have to be considered in order to assess their influence comparedwith a pure statical analysis.
1 INTRODUCTION
