Spatial vibration analysis of thin-walled box girders subject to moving random loads considering the shear effect

This research provides analytical solutions to assess the bending-torsional vibration behavior of a thin-walled box girder subjected to moving random loads. The governing equations of a thin-walled box girder have been formulated to incorporate the impact of shear effect. The technique of integral transformation and the method of statistical analysis are employed to determine the average and standard deviation of the displacements at mid-span. The research’s findings are compared with the results from the Newmark-β technique and the Monte Carlo method to validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. By analysing the parameters, it is confirmed that neglecting the shear effect can result in substantial underestimation of lateral displacement. Compared to the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, which does not consider the shear effect, the proposed theory shows differences of up to 109% in the average value and 213% in the standard deviation. These analysis results provide a reference for the vibration analysis of thin-walled box girders.