Abstract
A higher-order conical frustum shell strip for analysis of free vibration of curved box girder bridges is developed, the auxiliary nodal line technique is used in the formation, the application of the motion equation by form the matrices of the stiffness and that of the consist mass of the strip and which has been mathematically derived by solving sixth and third order equations for bending and in plane actions respectively. Guyan reduction technique have been applied for each stiffness and the mass matrices of bridge. The strip which implies minimizing the degrees of freedom of the auxiliary nodal line of the Higher Order Finite Strip in order to reduce the size of the matrix from (15x15) to (8 x 8).
The study has come out with very good results compared to the previous studies in terms of the natural frequencies for the first harmonic number of the box girder bridge section which is composed of two box cells with inclined webs. The ratio of difference between the present and previous studies have reached (6.73%) , while the natural frequencies for the seconed harmonic number of the same box section the ratio is about equal (3.765%) .
Keywords: Box Girder Bridges, Free Vibration Analysis, Higher Order Finite Strip.
