• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.509-520
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• 2021

The streamlined box is a common type of girders for long-span suspension bridges. Spanning deep canyons, long-span bridges are frequently attacked by strong winds with large angles of attack. In this situation, the flow field around the streamlined box changes significantly, leading to reduction of the flutter performance. The wind fairings have different effects on the flutter performance. Therefore, this study examines the flutter performance of box girders with different wind fairings at large angles of attack. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were carried out to extract the flutter derivatives, and the critical flutter state of a long-span bridge was determined. Further comparisons of the wind fairings were investigated by a rapid method which is related to the input energy by the aerodynamic force. The results show that a reasonable type of wind fairings could improve the flutter performance of long-span bridges at large angles of attack. For the torsional flutter instability, the wind fairings weaken the adverse effect of the vortex attaching to the girder, and a sharper one could achieve a better result. According to the input energies on the girder with different wind fairings, the symmetrical wind fairings are more beneficial to the flutter performance

• Wind and Structures
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.405-420
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• 2016

Section model wind tunnel test is currently the main technique to investigate the flutter performance of long-span bridges. Further study about applying the wind tunnel test results to the aerodynamic optimization is still needed. Systematical parameters and test principle of the bridge section model are determined by using three long-span steel truss suspension bridges. The flutter critical wind at different attack angles is obtained through section model flutter test. Under the most unfavorable working condition, tests to investigate the effects that upper central stabilized plate, lower central stabilized plate and horizontal stabilized plate have on the flutter performance of the main beam were conducted. According to the test results, the optimal aerodynamic measure was chosen to meet the requirements of the bridge wind resistance in consideration of safety, economy and aesthetics. At last the credibility of the results is confirmed by full bridge aerodynamic elastic model test. That the flutter reduced wind speed of long-span steel truss suspension bridges stays approximately between 4 to 5 is concluded as a reference for the investigation of the flutter performance of future similar steel truss girder suspension bridges.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.293-308
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• 2021

For the past three decades a significant amount of research has been conducted on bridge flutter. Wind tunnel tests for a 2000 m class twin-box suspension bridge have revealed that a twin-box deck carrying 4 m tall 50% open area ratio wind screens at the deck edges achieved higher critical wind speeds for onset of flutter than a similar deck without wind screens. A result at odds with the well-known behavior for the mono-box deck. The wind tunnel tests also revealed that the critical flutter wind speed increased if the bridge deck assumed a nose-up twist relative to horizontal when exposed to high wind speeds - a phenomenon termed the "nose-up" effect. Static wind tunnel tests of this twin-box cross section revealed a positive moment coefficient at 0° angle of attack as well as a positive moment slope, ensuring that the elastically supported deck would always meet the mean wind flow at ever increasing mean angles of attack for increasing wind speeds. The aerodynamic action of the wind screens on the twin-box bridge girder is believed to create the observed nose-up aerodynamic moment at 0° angle of attack. The present paper reviews the findings of the wind tunnel tests with a view to gain physical insight into the "nose-up" effect and to establish a theoretical model based on numerical simulations allowing flutter predictions for the twin-box bridge girder.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.61-82
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• 2007

This paper presents a novel finite element (FE) model for analyzing coupled flutter of long-span bridges using the commercial FE package ANSYS. This model utilizes a specific user-defined element Matrix27 in ANSYS to model the aeroelastic forces acting on the bridge, wherein the stiffness and damping matrices are expressed in terms of the reduced wind velocity and flutter derivatives. Making use of this FE model, damped complex eigenvalue analysis is carried out to determine the complex eigenvalues, of which the real part is the logarithm decay rate and the imaginary part is the damped vibration frequency. The condition for onset of flutter instability becomes that, at a certain wind velocity, the structural system incorporating fictitious Matrix27 elements has a complex eigenvalue with zero or near-zero real part, with the imaginary part of this eigenvalue being the flutter frequency. Case studies are provided to validate the developed procedure as well as to demonstrate the flutter analysis of cable-supported bridges using ANSYS. The proposed method enables the bridge designers and engineering practitioners to analyze flutter instability by using the commercial FE package ANSYS.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.171-180
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• 2019

This paper presents a restart iterative approach for time-domain flutter analysis of long-span bridges using the commercial FE package ANSYS. This approach utilizes the recursive formats of impulse-response-function expressions for bridge's aeroelastic forces. Nonlinear dynamic equilibrium equations are iteratively solved by using the restart technique in ANSYS, which enable the equilibrium state of system to get back to last moment absolutely during iterations. The condition for the onset of flutter instability becomes that, at a certain wind velocity, the amplitude of vibration is invariant with time. A long-span suspension bridge was taken as a numerical example to verify the applicability and accuracy of the proposed method by comparing calculated results with wind tunnel tests. The proposed method enables the bridge designers and engineering practitioners to carry out time-domain flutter analysis of bridges in commercial FE package ANSYS.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.633-648
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• 2020

The objective of this work was to investigate the interference effects of two-parallel bridge decks on aerodynamic coefficients, vortex-induced vibration, flutter instability and flutter derivatives. The two bridges have significant difference in cross-sections, dynamic properties, and flutter speeds of each isolate bridge. The aerodynamic static tests and aeroelastic tests were performed in TU-AIT boundary layer wind tunnel in Thammasat University (Thailand) with sectional models in a 1:90 scale. Three configuration cases, including the new bridge stand-alone (case 1), the upstream new bridge and downstream existing bridge (case 2), and the downstream new bridge and the upstream existing bridge (case 3), were selected in this study. The covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification technique (SSI-COV) was applied to identify aerodynamic parameters (i.e., natural frequency, structural damping and state space matrix) of the decks. The results showed that, interference effects of two bridges decks on aerodynamic coefficients result in the slightly reduction of the drag coefficient of case 2 and 3 when compared with case 1. The two parallel configurations of the bridge result in vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) and significantly lower the flutter speed compared with the new bridge alone. The huge torsional motion from upstream new bridge (case 2) generated turbulent wakes flow and resulted in vertical aerodynamic damping H1^* of existing bridge becomes zero at wind speed of 72.01 m/s. In this case, the downstream existing bridge was subjected to galloping oscillation induced by the turbulent wake of upstream new bridge. The new bridge also results in significant reduction of the flutter speed of existing bridge from the 128.29 m/s flutter speed of the isolated existing bridge to the 75.35 m/s flutter speed of downstream existing bridge.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.421-435
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• 2007

A two-dimensional flutter analysis method (2d-3DOF method) was developed to simultaneously investigate the relationship between oscillation parameters and aerodynamic derivatives of three degrees of freedom, and to clarify the coupling effects of different degrees of freedom in flutter instability. With this method, the flutter mechanism of two typical bridge deck sections, box girder section and two-isolated-girder section, were numerically investigated, and both differences and common ground in these two typical flutter phenomena are summarized. Then the flutter stabilization effect and its mechanism for long-span bridges with box girders by using central-slotting were studied by experimental investigation of aerodynamic stability and theoretical analysis of stabilizing mechanism. Possible explanation of new findings in the evaluation trend of critical wind speed through central vent width is finally presented.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.205-217
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• 2009

Aerodynamic flutter control for long-span cable-supported bridges was investigated based on three basic girder sections, i.e. streamlined box girder section, box girder section with cantilevered slabs and two-isolated-girder section. Totally four kinds of aerodynamic flutter control measures (adding fairings, central-slotting, adding central stabilizers and adjusting the position of inspection rail) were included in this research. Their flutter control effects on different basic girder sections were evaluated by sectional model or aeroelastic model wind tunnel tests. It is found that all basic girder sections can get aerodynamically more stabled with appropriate aerodynamic flutter control measures, while the control effects are influenced by the details of control measures and girder section configurations. The control effects of the combinations of these four kinds of aerodynamic flutter control measures, such as central-slotting plus central-stabilizer, were also investigated through sectional model wind tunnel tests, summarized and compared to the flutter control effect of single measure respectively.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.403-418
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• 2020

To investigate the effects of central buckles on the dynamic behavior and flutter stability of long-span suspension bridges, four different connection options between the main cable and the girder near the mid-span position of the Aizhai Bridge were studied. Based on the flutter derivatives obtained from wind tunnel tests, formulations of self-excited forces in the time domain were obtained using a nonlinear least square fitting method and a time-domain flutter analysis was realized. Subsequently, the influences of the central buckles on the critical flutter velocity, flutter frequency, and three-dimensional flutter states of the bridge were investigated. The results show that the central buckles can significantly increase the frequency of the longitudinal floating mode of the bridge and have greater influence on the frequencies of the asymmetric lateral bending mode and asymmetric torsion mode than on that of the symmetric ones. As such, the central buckles have small impact on the critical flutter velocity due to that the flutter mode of the Aizhai Bridge was essentially the symmetric torsion mode coupled with the symmetric vertical mode. However, the central buckles have certain impact on the flutter mode and the three-dimensional flutter states of the bridge. In addition, it is found that the phenomenon of complex beat vibrations (called intermittent flutter phenomenon) appeared in the flutter state of the bridge when the structural damping is 0 or very low.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.275-298
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• 2013

This paper presents a number of approximated analytical formulations for the flutter analysis of long-span bridges using the so-called uncoupled flutter derivatives. The formulae have been developed from the simplified framework of a bimodal coupled flutter problem. As a result, the proposed method represents an extension of Selberg's empirical formula to generic bridge sections, which may be prone to one of the aeroelastic instability such as coupled-mode or single-mode (either dominated by torsion or heaving mode) flutter. Two approximated expressions for the flutter derivatives are required so that only the experimental flutter derivatives of ($H_1^*$, $A_2^*$) are measured to calculate the onset flutter. Based on asymptotic expansions of the flutter derivatives, a further simplified formula was derived to predict the critical wind speed of the cross section, which is prone to the coupled-mode flutter at large reduced wind speeds. The numerical results produced by the proposed formulas have been compared with results obtained by complex eigenvalue analysis and available approximated methods show that they seem to give satisfactory results for a wide range of study cases. Thus, these formulas can be used in the assessment of bridge flutter performance at the preliminary design stage.