Experimental Identification of Aerodynamic Forces

A semi-empirical method to assess aerodynamic forces acting on a two-dimensional bridge model is proposed. By integrating or differentiating numerically the acceleration or the displacement records of the wind tunnel model, the time series of the aerodynamic forces are found on the basis of the equation of motion of the model. This method was tried in a number of tests. Forced oscillation tests showed that the exciting forces estimated by this method agreed well with the directly measured ones. Aerodynamic tests in wind tunnel showed that the aerodynamic phenomena of the models could be well described through estimated aerodynamic forces. Aerodynamic tests in natural wind showed that this method was also applicable to random aerodynamic phenomena.