Influence Lines for Moving Loads

You can draw the route of a vehicle over the structure for a moving load case.

A moving load is defined by selecting a vehicle and determining its route over the structure. The vehicle is treated as a set of forces with a defined direction, size, and position. In each step, the vehicle is moved from one position to another; the set of forces applied to structure elements is created for each position. Therefore, the moving load case is treated as a set of several static load cases (successive load case for the next position of the vehicle).

For a moving load case, you can draw the route of the vehicle over the structure. In addition, you can display the loads originating in the vehicle and display the resultant values, separately for each position of the vehicle or for the entire sequence of positions (animation of the moving load and of the resultant values).

The results obtained for the moving load case can be presented in 2 ways. The first method consists in displaying the results of a static case for a moving load position you selected. You can move the load step by step or take advantage of the animation of the vehicle and the results for the moving load. The second method consists in displaying the changes of the value of a selected quantity in a selected point, because of the movement of the load over the structure, that is, the display of the influence lines for a selected quantity.

Example of an influence line

The influence line can be divided into 2 section: