Time-Domain Aeroelastic Loads and Response of Flexible Bridges in Gusty Wind: Prediction and Experimental Validation
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 139, Issue 3
Abstract
Flexible bridges could experience vortex-induced and buffeting excitations below their design wind speeds and divergent self-excited oscillations (flutter) beyond a critical wind speed. For regular straight-line winds that are stationary or weakly stationary, a frequency domain formulation is routinely used for flutter analysis of bridges. However, when evaluating performance of flexible bridges subjected to gusty winds that are transient in nature, the frequency-domain formulation is not applicable, and hence time-domain methods should be used. In this paper, time-domain formulations were used to predict aeroelastic loads acting on a rigid bridge deck section model subject to stationary and gusty straight-line winds based on the knowledge of upstream wind speed and model displacement measurements. In this procedure, rational functions and indicial functions are used to formulate self-excited forces and buffeting forces, respectively. The functions used here were recently obtained from wind tunnel tests performed on a streamlined bridge deck section model with a smaller geometric scale. The results of the validation using a larger section model of this bridge deck subject to a ramp-type gust are presented here.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 139 • Issue 3 • March 2013
Pages: 359 - 366
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 31, 2011
Accepted: Jun 19, 2012
Published online: Feb 15, 2013
Published in print: Mar 1, 2013
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