Temperature Field Characteristics of Flat Steel Box Girders Based on In Situ Field Measurement and Numerical Simulation
Publication: Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 28, Issue 12
Abstract
Accurate assessment of temperature characteristics of flat steel box girders (FSBGs) is of great significance for the design, construction, and maintenance of long-span bridges. However, the inflow wind speed has been routinely adopted in the conventional thermal analysis on FSBGs; this ignores the actual wind field around the FSBGs and might result in inaccurate assessment of temperature characteristics of FSBGs. In this study, a novel thermal analysis approach is proposed to evaluate the temperature characteristics of FSBGs, which accounts for the nonuniform wind distribution at the thermal boundary layer thickness (Ua) around the FSBGs. To achieve this, a wind adjustment factor derived via computational fluid dynamic simulations is employed to correlate the inflow wind speed and Ua. The feasibility and accuracy of the proposed thermal analysis approach is validated through field measurements. Subsequently, four indices, i.e., effective temperature (ET), vertical temperature difference (VTD), transverse temperature difference (TTD), and local temperature different gradient (LTDG), are adopted for evaluating the temperature field characteristics of FSBGs of a prototype bridge. Finally, a parametric study is performed to investigate the influence of several key parameters on the temperature field characteristics of FSBGs. These research methods and conclusions can provide valuable references for the thermal design, monitoring, and control of long-span bridges employing FSBGs as the main girders.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This material is based on work supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. U21A20154), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2682021CX012), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2019TQ0271). This support is greatly appreciated.
Author contributions: Xu Huang: field measurement; writing of original draft; software. Jin Zhu: writing of original draft; writing, review, and editing; supervision; conceptualization; funding acquisition. Shangjun Jiang: field measurement. Jie Zhao: field measurement. Yongle Li: conceptualization; funding acquisition.
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Published In
Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 28 • Issue 12 • December 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 18, 2023
Accepted: Aug 10, 2023
Published online: Sep 22, 2023
Published in print: Dec 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Feb 22, 2024
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