• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.445-457
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• 2020

The buffeting response is a vital consideration for long-span bridges in typhoon-prone areas. In the conventional analysis, the turbulence and structural vibrations are assumed as stationary processes, which are, however, inconsistent with the non-stationary features observed in typhoon winds. This poses a question on how the stationary assumption would affect the evaluation of buffeting responses under non-stationary wind actions in nature. To figure out this problem, this paper presents a comparative study on buffeting responses of a long-span cable-stayed bridge based on stationary and non-stationary perspectives. The stationary and non-stationary buffeting analysis frameworks are firstly reviewed. Then, a modal analysis of the example bridge, Sutong Cable-stayed Bridge (SCB), is conducted, and stationary and non-stationary spectral models are derived based on measured typhoon winds. On this condition, the buffeting responses of SCB are finally analyzed by following stationary and non-stationary approaches. Although the stationary results are almost identical with the non-stationary results in the mean sense, the root-mean-square value of buffeting responses are underestimated by the stationary assumption as the time-varying features existing in the spectra of turbulence are neglected. The analytical results highlights a transition from stationarity to non-stationarity in the buffeting analysis of long-span bridges.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.4 no.6
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• pp.505-518
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• 2001

Shantou Bay Bridge is the first long-span suspension bridge in China. Because of its location near the Shantou Seaport and its exposure to high typhoon winds, wind-resistant studies are necessary to be made. In this paper, critical flutter wind speeds and buffeting responses of this bridge at its operation and main construction stages are investigated. The Buffeting Response Spectrum method is first briefly presented. Then the sectional model test is carried out to directly obtain the critical flutter wind speed and to identify the flutter derivatives, which are adopted for the later analysis of the buffeting responses using the Buffeting Response Spectrum method. Finally the aeroelastic full bridge model is tested to further investigate the dynamic effects of the bridge. The results from the tests and the computations indicate that the flutter and buffeting behaviors of the Shantou Bay Bridge are satisfied.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.71-80
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• 2013

According to design specifications for structural safety, a bridge in initial design step has been modelled to have larger self-weight, external loads and less stiffness than those of real one in service. Thereby measured buffeting responses of existing bridge show different distributions from those of the design model in design step. In order to obtain accurate buffeting responses of the in-site bridge, the analysis model needs to be modified by considering the measured natural frequencies. Until now, a Manual Tuning Method (MTM) has been widely used to obtain the Measurement-based Model(MBM) that has equal natural frequencies to the real bridge. However, since state variables can be selected randomly and its result is not apt to converge exact rapidly, MTM takes a lot of effort and elapsed time. This study presents Buffeting Response Correction Method (BRCM) to obtain more exact buffeting response above MTM. The BRCM is based on the idea the commonly used frequency domain buffeting analysis does not need all structural properties except mode shapes, natural frequencies and damping ratio. BRCM is used to improve each modal buffeting responses of the design model by substituting measured natural frequencies. The measured natural frequencies are determined from acceleration time-history in ordinary vibration of the real bridge. As illustrated examples, simple beam is applied to compare the results of BRCM with those of a assumed MBM by numerical simulation. Buffeting responses of BRCM are shown to be appropriate for those of in-site bridge and the difference is less than 3% between the responses of BRCM and MTM. Therefore, BRCM can calculate easily and conveniently the buffeting responses and improve effectively maintenance and management of in-site bridge than MTM.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.349-359
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• 2016

In order to analytically evaluate buffeting responses, the analysis of wind characteristics such as turbulence intensity, turbulence length, gust, roughness coefficient, etc must be a priority. Static aerodynamic force coefficients, flutter coefficients, structural damping ratios, aerodynamic damping ratios and natural frequencies affect the analytical responses. The bridge interested in this paper has being been used for 32 years. As the time passes, current terrain conditions around the bridge are different markedly from the conditions it was built 32 years ago. Also, wind environments were considerably varied by the climate change. For this reason, it is necessary to evaluate the turbulence intensity, length, spectrum and roughness coefficient of the bridge site from full-scale measurements using the structural health monitoring system. The evaluation results indicate that wind characteristics of bridge site is analogous to that of open terrain although the bridge is located on the coastal area. To calculate buffeting responses, the analysis variables such as damping ratios, static aerodynamic force coefficients and natural frequency were evaluated from measured data. The analysis was performed with regard to 4 cases. The evaluated variables from measured data are applied to the first and second analysis cases. And the other analysis cases were performed based on Design Guidelines for Steel Cable Supported Bridges. The calculated responses of each analysis cases are compared with the buffeting response measured at less than 25m/s wind speed. It is verified that the responses by the numerical analysis applying the estimated variables based on full-scale measurements are well agreed with the measured actual buffeting responses under wind speed 25m/s. Also, the extreme wind speed corresponding to a recurrence interval 200 years is derived from Gumbel distribution. The derived wind speed for return period of 200 years is 45m/s. Therefore the buffeting responses at wind speed 45m/s is determined by the analysis applying the estimated variables.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.2A
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• pp.97-104
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• 2011

This study presents the aerodynamic admittance function of bridge girder under turbulent flow generated from wind velocity spectrum measured at bridge site. Three dimensional buffeting analysis of concrete cable-stayed bridge were performed considering aerodynamic admittance functions obtained from four different methods. It is revealed from the analysis that vertical buffeting responses considering proper aerodynamic admittance functions were just half of that neglecting aerodynamic admittance function. Grid turbulence was found to relatively lower the aerodynamic admittance function at low frequency range, and to underestimate the buffeting wind forces. It is recommended to use the aerodynamic admittance function evaluated from flutter derivatives or measured at active turbulence in order to properly predict the buffeting responses of bridges.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.89-104
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• 2021

Non-synoptic winds generated by tornadoes, downbursts or gust fronts exhibit significant non-stationarity and can cause significant wind load effect on flexible structures such as long-span bridges. However, conventional assumptions on stationarity used to evaluate the structural wind-induced vibration are inadequate. In this paper, an efficient frequency domain scheme based on fast CQC method, which can predict non-stationary buffeting random responses of long-span bridges, is presented, and then this approach is applied to evaluate the buffeting response of a long-span suspension bridge located in a complex mountainous wind environment as an example. In this study, the data-driven method based on one available measured wind speed sample is firstly presented to establish non-stationary wind models, including time-varying mean wind speed, time-varying intensity envelope function and uniformly modulated fluctuating spectrum. Then, a linear time-variant (LTV) system based on the proposed scheme can be generally applied to calculate the non-stationary buffeting responses. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed scheme are verified through Monte Carlo time domain simulation implemented in ANSYS platform. Also, the transient effect nature of the bridge responses is further illustrated by comparison of the non-stationary, quasistationary and steady-state cases. Finally, buffeting response analysis with traditional stationary treatment (10 min constant mean plus stationary wind fluctuation) is performed to illustrate the importance of the non-stationary characteristics embedded in original wind speed samples.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.391-411
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• 2008

A design procedure of stabilizing cable is proposed using buffeting analysis to stabilize the seesaw-like motion of the free cantilevered structure of a cable-stayed bridge during its construction. The bridge examined is a composite cable-stayed bridge having a main span length of 500 m. Based on the buffeting analysis, the stress in bare structure exceeded the allowable limit and a set of stabilizing cable was planned to mitigate the responses. The most efficient positions of the hold-down stabilizing cables were numerically investigated by means of an FE-based buffeting analysis and the required dimensions and pretension of the stabilizing cables were also calculated. The proposed stabilizing measure would be expected to secure the aerodynamic safety of a cantilevered structure under construction with considerable mitigation of buffeting responses.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.179-196
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• 2003

A long suspension bridge is often located within a unique wind environment, and strong winds at the site seldom attack the bridge at a right angle to its long axis. This paper thus investigates the buffeting response of long suspension bridges to skew winds. The conventional buffeting analysis in the frequency domain is first improved to take into account skew winds based on the quasi-steady theory and the oblique strip theory in conjunction with the finite element method and the pseudo-excitation method. The aerodynamic coefficients and flutter derivatives of the Tsing Ma suspension bridge deck under skew winds, which are required in the improved buffeting analysis, are then measured in a wind tunnel using specially designed test rigs. The field measurement data, which were recorded during Typhoon Sam in 1999 by the Wind And Structural Health Monitoring System (WASHMS) installed on the Tsing Ma Bridge, are analyzed to obtain both wind characteristics and buffeting responses. Finally, the field measured buffeting responses of the Tsing Ma Bridge are compared with those from the computer simulation using the improved method and the aerodynamic coefficients and flutter derivatives measured under skew winds. The comparison is found satisfactory in general.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.505-520
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• 2002

Based on the modal coordinates of the structure, a finite-element and CQC (complete quadratic combination) method for analyzing the coupled buffeting response of long-span bridges is presented. The formulation of nodal equivalent aerodynamic buffeting forces is derived based on a reasonable assumption. The power spectral density and variance of nodal displacements and elemental internal forces of the bridge structure are computed using the finite-element method and the random vibration theory. The method presented is very efficient and can consider the arbitrary spectrum and spatial coherence of natural winds and the multimode and intermode effects on the buffeting responses of bridge structures. A coupled buffeting analysis of the Jiangyin Yangtse River Suspension Bridge with 1385 in main span is performed as an example. The results analyzed show that the multimode and intermode effects on the buffeting response of the bridge deck are quite remarkable.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.665-686
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• 2014

This study presents a comprehensive investigation of the aerostatic and buffeting response characteristics of a suspension bridge catwalk. The three-dimensional aerostatic response analysis was carried out taking into account the geometric nonlinearity and nonlinear dependence of wind loads on the angle of attack. The buffeting response analysis was performed in the time domain. The aerostatic and buffeting responses of the catwalk show strong coupling of vertical and lateral vibrations. The lateral displacement is the main component of the wind-induced static and buffeting response of the catwalk.