• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.589-596
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• 2014

Joints, fasteners or connected parts frequently have a significant effect on the dynamical behavior of assembled mechanical structures. Therefore, the analytical prediction of structural responses depends on the accuracy of joint modeling. This paper deals with the formulation and analysis of dynamic mechanism for joint flexibilities whose relevant magnitudes of stiffnesses are investigated by using linear and torsional springs. The equation of motion is derived by using a generic joint in the middle of clamped-clamped beam. A reanalysis due to changes in magnitudes of joint stiffnesses is based on the reduced analysis where the binomial series terms are used as basis vectors. The solution procedures are straightforward and the method can be readily used with a general finite element method. The computational effort needed by this approach is usually much smaller than the effort needed for complete vibration analysis. Two numerical examples show that accurate results are obtained efficiently by reducing the number of degree in the reduced model.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.163-175
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• 2019

Multispan suspension bridges make a good alternative to single-span ones if the crossed strait or river width exceeds 2-3 km. However, multispan three-tower suspension bridges are found to be very sensitive to the wind load due to the lack of effective longitudinal constraint at their central tower. Moreover, at certain critical wind speed values, the aerostatic instability with sharply deteriorating dynamic characteristics may occur with catastrophic consequences. An attempt of an in-depth study on the aerostatic stability mode and damage mechanism of three-tower suspension bridges is made in this paper based on the assessment of strain energy and dynamic characteristics of three particular three-tower suspension bridges in China under different wind speeds and their further integration into the aerostatic stability analysis. The results obtained on the three bridges under study strongly suggest that their aerostatic instability mode is controlled by the coupled action of the anti-symmetric torsion and vertical bending of the two main-spans' deck, together with the longitudinal bending of the towers, which can be regarded as the first-order torsion vibration mode coupled with the first-order vertical bending vibration mode. The growth rates of the torsional and vertical bending strain energy of the deck after the aerostatic instability are higher than those of the lateral bending. The bending and torsion frequencies decrease rapidly when the wind speed approaches the critical value, while the frequencies of the anti-symmetric vibration modes drop more sharply than those of the symmetric ones. The obtained dependences between the critical wind speed, strain energy, and dynamic characteristics of the bridge components under the aerostatic instability modes are considered instrumental in strength and integrity calculation of three-tower suspension bridges.