• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.125-146
• /
• 2006

Stonecutters Bridge of Hong Kong is a cable-stayed bridge with two single-column pylons each 298 m high and an aerodynamic twin deck. The total length of the bridge is 1596 m with a main span of 1018 m. The top 118 m of the tower will comprise structural steel and concrete composite while the bottom part will be of reinforced concrete. The bridge deck at the central span will be of steel whilst the side spans will be of concrete. Stonecutters Bridge has adopted a twin-girder deck design with a wide clear separation of 14.3 m between the two longitudinal girders. Although a number of studies have been conducted to investigate the aerodynamic performance of twin-girder deck, the actual real life application of this type of deck is extremely limited. This therefore triggered the need for conducting the present studies, the main objective of which is to investigate the performance of Stonecutters Bridge against flutter at its in-service stage as well as during construction. Based on the flutter derivatives obtained from the 1:80 scale rigid section model experiment, flutter analysis was carried out using 3-D finite element based single parameter searching method developed by the second author of this paper. A total of 6 finite element models of the bridge covering the in-service stage as well as 5 construction stages were established. The dynamic characteristics of the bridge associated with these stages were computed and applied in the analyses. Apart from the critical wind speeds for the onset of flutter, the dominant modes of vibration participating in the flutter vibration were also identified. The results indicate that the bridge will be stable against flutter at its in-service stage as well as during construction at wind speeds much higher than the verification wind speed of 95 m/s (1-minute mean).

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.853-871
• /
• 2015

Up to now, Japan has more than 200 corrugated steel web composite beam bridges which are under construction and have been constructed, and China has more than 30 corrugated steel web composite beam bridges. The bridge type includes the simply supported beam, continuous beam, continuous rigid frame and cable stayed bridge etc. The section form has developed to the single box and multi-cell box girder from the original single box and single chamber. From the stress performance and cost saving, the span range of 50~150 m is the most competitive. At present, the design mostly adopts the computational analytical method combining the spatial bar system model, plane beam grillage model and solid model. However, the spatial bar system model is short of the refinement analysis on the space effect, such as the shear lag effect, effective distribution width problem, and eccentric load factor problem etc. Due to the similarity of the plane beam grillage method in the equivalence principle, it cannot accurately reflect the shearing stress distribution and local stress of the top and bottom plates of the box type composite beam. The solid model is very difficult to combine with the overall calculation. Moreover, the spatial grid model can achieve the refinement analysis, with the integrity of the analysis and the comprehensiveness of the stress checking calculation, and can make up the deficiency of the analytical method currently. Through the example verification of the solid model and spatial grid model, it can be seen that the calculation results for the stress and the displacement of two models are almost consistent, indicating the applicability and precision of the spatial grid model.