The Effect of Soil–Structure Interaction on Vehicle Safety on High-Speed Rail Bridges Subjected to Near-Fault Ground Vibrations

There has been a growing interest in studying the impact of soil–structure interaction (SSI) on high-speed rail (HSR) bridges during near-fault earthquakes. A model of the HSR vehicle–track–bridge–soil–pile (HSR-VTBSP) system is created to compute its seismic response in both elastic and plastic states. The model is used to investigate how the SSI affects the elastic–plastic seismic response of bridges. The study reveals that SSI greatly affects the seismic response of bridges. Even when subjected to far-field earthquakes, SSI still significantly impacts the length of bridge girders. Consequently, the SSI effect has a notable influence on the safe operation of trains on bridges. This paper reports the following novel discoveries: The “derailment” condition is determined by the SSI effect, which is the safe limit amplitude of wheel–rail relative displacement with respect to the entire train derailment process in train track aggregation. [Formula: see text]. The findings of this research may serve as a valuable reference for investigating the measurement of lateral displacement in the wheel–rail contact point.