• Wind and Structures
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.283-299
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• 2017

Two types of aerodynamic admittance function (AAF) that have been adopted in bridge aerodynamics are addressed. The first type is based on a group of supposed relations between flutter derivatives and AAFs. In so doing, the aero-elastic properties of a section could be used to determine AAFs. It is found that the supposed relations hold only for cases when the gust frequencies are within a very low range. Predominant frequencies of long-span bridges are, however, far away from this range. In this sense, the AAFs determined this way are of little practical significance. Another type of AAFs is based on the relation between the Theodorsen circulation function and the Sears function, which holds for thin airfoil theories. It is found, however, that an obvious illogicality exists in this methodology either. In this article, a viewpoint is put forward that AAFs of bluff bridge deck sections are inherently dependent on oncoming turbulent properties. This kind of dependence is investigated with a thin plate and a double-girder bluff section via computational fluid dynamics method. Two types of wind fluctuations are used for identification of AAFs. One is turbulent wind flow while the other is harmonic. The numerical results indicate that AAFs of the thin plate agree well with the Sears AAF, and show no obvious dependence on the oncoming wind fields. In contrast, for the case of bluff double-girder section, AAFs identified from the turbulent and harmonic flows of different amplitudes differ among each other, exhibiting obvious dependence on the oncoming wind field properties.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.349-361
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• 2015

Higher-mode vertical vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) have been observed on several steel box-girder suspension bridges where different vertical modes are selectively excited in turn with wind velocity in accordance with the Strouhal law. Understanding the relationship of VIV amplitudes for different modes of vibration is very important for wind-resistant design of long-span box-girder suspension bridges. In this study, the basic rectangular cross-section with side ratio of B/D=6 is used to investigate the effect of different modes on VIV amplitudes by section model tests. The section model is flexibly mounted in wind tunnel with a variety of spring constants for simulating different modes of vibration and the non-dimensional vertical amplitudes are determined as a function of reduced velocity U/fD. Two 'lock-in' ranges are observed at the same onset reduced velocities of approximately 4.8 and 9.4 for all cases. The second 'lock-in' range, which is induced by the conventional vortex shedding, consistently gives larger responses than the first one and the Sc-normalized maximum non-dimensional responses are almost the same for different spring constants. The first 'lock-in' range where the vibration frequency is approximately two times the vortex shedding frequency is probably a result of super-harmonic resonance or the "frequency demultiplication". The main conclusion drawn from the section model study, central to the higher-mode VIV of suspension bridges, is that the VIV amplitude for different modes is the same provided that the Sc number for these modes is identical.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.1A
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• pp.71-80
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• 2010

Bridge deck is directly influenced by environment and vehicle load, it is easily damaged so that it requires an appropriate repair and retrofit. Therefore, developing a bridge deck with high durability is necessary in order to minimize the maintenance of bridge deck and use it to its design life. In this study, static test was carried out to evaluate a fatigue capacity of steel-concrete composite deck, which was newly developed by supplementing problems of existing reinforced concrete deck. Based on results from the static test, fatigue load was decided, and fatigue test was conducted under the constant amplitude repeated load. From the fatigue tests, the S-N curve regarding principle structural details of composite deck was made, and characteristics of fatigue behavior was estimated by comparing and evaluating it with fatigue design criteria. In addition, fatigue design guideline was presented. As a result, it is found that each structural details of composite deck proposed by this study, such as upper flange of corrugated steel plate and middle section of it, shear connector and lower flange of corrugated steel plate, is satisfying the fatigue strength.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.1135-1152
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• 2015

Most of current bridge decks are made of reinforced concrete and often deteriorate at a relatively rapid rate in operational environments. The quick deterioration of the deck often impacts other critical components of the bridge. Another disadvantage of the concrete deck is its high weight in long-span bridges. Therefore, it is essential to examine new materials and innovative designs using hybrid system consisting conventional materials such as concrete and steel with FRP plates which is also known as composite deck. Since these decks are relatively new, so it would be useful to evaluate their performances in more details. The present study is dedicated to Hat-Shape composite girder with concrete slab. The structural performance of girder was evaluated with nonlinear finite element method by using ABAQUS and numerical results have been compared with experimental results of other researches. After ensuring the validity of numerical modeling of composite deck, parametric studies have been conducted; such as investigating the effects of constituent properties by changing the compressive strength of concrete slab and Elasticity modulus of GFRP materials. The efficacy of the GFRP box girders has been studied by changing GFRP material to steel and aluminum. In addition, the effect of Cross-Sectional Configuration has been evaluated. It was found that the behavior of this type of composite girders can be studied with numerical methods without carrying out costly experiments. The material properties can be modified to improve ultimate load capacity of the composite girder. strength-to-weight ratio of the girder increased by changing the GFRP material to aluminum and ultimate load capacity enhanced by deformation of composite girder cross-section.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2009

In this paper, the airflow around an ideal thin plate (hereafter referred to as ITP) with various ratios of central slot is simulated by using the finite-difference-method (FDM)-based Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian descriptions for the rigid oscillating body. The numerical procedure employs the second-order projection scheme to decouple the governing equations, and the multigrid algorithm with three levels to improve the computational efficiency in evaluating of the pressure equation. The present CFD method is validated through comparing the computed flutter derivatives of the ITP without slot to Theodorsen analytical solutions. Then, the unsteady aerodynamics of the ITP with and without central slot is investigated. It is found that even a smaller ratio of central slot of the ITP has notable effects on pressure distributions of the downstream section, and the pressure distributions on the downstream section will further be significantly affected by the slot ratio and the reduced wind speeds. Continuous increase of $A_2^*$ with the increase of central slot may be the key feature of the slotted ITP. Finally, flutter analyses based on the flutter derivatives of the slotted ITP are performed, and moreover, flutter instabilities of a scaled sectional model of a twin-deck bridge with various ratios of deck slot are investigated. The results confirm that the central slot is effective to improve bridge flutter stabilities, and that the flutter critical wind speeds increase with the increase of slot ratio.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.481-500
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• 2017

A novel three-degree-of-freedom (DOF) forced vibration system has been developed for identification of aeroelastic (self-excited) load parameters used in time-domain response analysis of wind-excited flexible structures. This system is capable of forcing sinusoidal motions on a section model of a structure that is used in wind tunnel aeroelastic studies along all three degrees of freedom - along-wind, cross-wind, and torsional - simultaneously or in any combination thereof. It utilizes three linear actuators to force vibrations at a consistent frequency but varying amplitudes between the three. This system was designed to identify all the parameters, namely, aeroelastic- damping and stiffness that appear in self-excited (motion-dependent) load formulation either in time-domain (rational functions) or frequency-domain (flutter derivatives). Relatively large displacements (at low frequencies) can be generated by the system, if required. Results from three experiments, airfoil, streamlined bridge deck and a bluff-shaped bridge deck, are presented to demonstrate the functionality and robustness of the system and its applicability to multiple cross-section types. The system will allow routine identification of aeroelastic parameters through wind tunnel tests that can be used to predict response of flexible structures in extreme and transient wind conditions.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.159-178
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• 2006

For the slender and flexible cable supported bridges, identification of all the flutter derivatives for the vertical, lateral and torsional motions is essential for its stability investigation. In all, eighteen flutter derivatives may have to be considered, the identification of which using a three degree-of-freedom elastic suspension system has been a challenging task. In this paper, a system identification technique, known as covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification (COV-SSI) technique, has been utilized to extract the flutter derivatives for a typical bridge deck. This method identifies the stochastic state-space model from the covariances of the output-only (stochastic) data. All the eighteen flutter derivatives have been simultaneously extracted from the output response data obtained from wind tunnel test on a 3-DOF elastically suspended bridge deck section-model. Simplicity in model suspension and measurements of only output responses are additional motivating factors for adopting COV-SSI technique. The identified discrete values of flutter derivatives have been approximated by rational functions.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.231-251
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• 2018

The objective of the investigation is the analysis of wind-tunnel experimental errors, associated with the measurement of aeroelastic coefficients of bridge decks (Scanlan flutter derivatives). A two-degree-of-freedom experimental apparatus is used for the measurement of flutter derivatives. A section model of a closed-box bridge deck is considered in this investigation. Identification is based on free-vibration aeroelastic tests and the Iterative Least Squares method. Experimental error investigation is carried out by repeating the measurements and acquisitions thirty times for each wind tunnel speed and configuration of the model. This operational procedure is proposed for analyzing the experimental variability of flutter derivatives. Several statistical quantities are examined; these quantities include the standard deviation and the empirical probability density function of the flutter derivatives at each wind speed. Moreover, the critical flutter speed of the setup is evaluated according to standard flutter theory by accounting for experimental variability. Since the probability distribution of flutter derivatives and critical flutter speed does not seem to obey a standard theoretical model, polynomial chaos expansion is proposed and used to represent the experimental variability.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.441-455
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• 2006

A more applicable optimization model for extracting flutter derivatives of bridge decks is presented, which is suitable for time-varying weights for fitting errors and different lengths of vertical bending and torsional free vibration data. A stochastic search technique for searching the optimal solution of optimization problem is developed, which is more convenient in understanding and programming than the alternate iteration technique, and testified to be a valid and efficient method using two numerical examples. On the basis of the section model test of Sutong Bridge deck, the flutter derivatives are extracted by the stochastic search technique, and compared with the identification results using the modified least-square method. The Empirical Mode Decomposition method is employed to eliminate noise, trends and zero excursion of the collected free vibration data of vertical bending and torsional motion, by which the identification precision of flutter derivatives is improved.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.423-434
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• 2011

Tongwamen Bridge is a critical link between Dongmen Island and the land in Shipu town, Zhejiang province, China. It is a 238 m span, half-through, concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) X-type arch bridge. The width of the deck is only 10 m, yielding a width-to-span ratio of 1/23.8. The plane truss type section rib was adopted, which made of two CFST chords and web member system. The lateral stability is the key issue to this bridge. However, the existing researches on Tongwamen Bridge's lateral stability are all the deterministic structural analysis. In this paper, a new strategy for positioning sampling points of the response surface method (RSM), based on the composite method combining RSM with geometric method for structural reliability analysis, is employed to obtain the reliability index of lateral stability. In addition the correlated parameters were discussed in detail to find the major factors. According to the analysis results, increasing the stiff of lateral braces between the arch ribs and setting the proper inward-incline degree of the arch rib can enhance obviously the reliability of lateral stability. Moreover, the deck action of non-orienting force is less than the two factors above. The calculated results indicate that the arch ribs are safe enough to keep excellent stability, and it provides the foundation that the plane truss rib would be a competitive solution for a long-span, narrow, CFST arch bridge.