• Wind and Structures
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.55-70
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• 2004

Aerostatic instability of a suspension bridge may suddenly appears when the deformed shape of the structure produces an increase in the value of the three components of displacement-dependent wind loads distributed in the structure. This paper investigates the aerostatic stability of suspension bridges using an advanced nonlinear method based on the concept of limit point instability. Particular attention is devoted to aerostatic stability analysis of symmetrical suspension bridges. A long-span symmetrical suspension bridge (Hu Men Bridge) with a main span of 888 m is chosen for analysis. It is found that the initial configuration (symmetry or asymmetry) may affect the instability configuration of structure. A finite element software for the nonlinear aerostatic stability analysis of cable-supported bridges (NASAB) is presented and discussed. The aerostatic failure mechanism of suspension bridges is also explained by tracing aerostatic instability path.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.553-564
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• 2013

By using the nonlinear aerostatic stability theory together with the method of mean wind decomposition, a method for nonlinear aerostatic stability analysis is proposed for long-span suspension bridges under yaw wind. A corresponding program is developed considering static wind load nonlinearity and structural nonlinearity. Taking a suspension bridge with three towers and double main spans as an example, the full range aerostatic instability is analyzed under wind at different attack angles and yaw angles. The results indicate that the lowest critical wind speed of aerostatic instability is gained when the initial yaw angle is greater than $0^{\circ}$, which suggests that perhaps yaw wind poses a disadvantage to the aerostatic stability of a long span suspension bridge. The results also show that the main span in upstream goes into instability first, and the reason for this phenomenon is discussed.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.649-662
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• 2020

The existence of a dam has potential effects on the surrounding wind environment especially when it is located in mountainous areas. In this situation, the long-span bridge over the reservoir can easily be exposed to non-uniform incoming flows, affecting its wind-resistance performance. This paper presents a study on the aerostatic stability of such a bridge. Wind tunnel tests were first carried out to investigate the wind environment above a mountainous reservoir. The results show that the angle of attack and the wind speed along the bridge axis show obvious non-uniform characteristics, which is related to the inflow direction. When winds come from the south where the river is winding, the angle of attack varies along the span direction significantly. The finite element model for the bridge was established using ANSYS software, and effects of non-uniform wind loads on the aerostatic stability were computed. Non-uniform angle of attack and wind speed are unfavorable to the aerostatic stability of the bridge, especially the former. When the combined action of non-uniform angle of attack and wind speed is considered, the critical wind speed of aerostatic instability is further reduced. Moreover, the aerostatic stability of the bridge is closely related to the dam height.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.485-503
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• 2016

To investigate the nonlinear aerostatic stability of the Hutong cable-stayed rail-cum-road bridge with ultra-kilometer main span, a FEM bridge model is established. The tri-component wind loads and geometric nonlinearity are taken into consideration and discussed for the influence of nonlinear parameters and factors on bridge resistant capacity of aerostatic instability. The results show that the effect of initial wind attack-angle is significant for the aerostatic stability analysis of the bridge. The geometric nonlinearities of the bridge are of considerable importance in the analysis, especially the effect of cable sag. The instable mechanism of the Hutong Bridge with a steel truss girder is the spatial combination of vertical bending and torsion with large lateral bending displacement. The design wind velocity is much lower than the static instability wind velocity, and the structural aerostatic resistance capacity can meet the requirement.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.43-58
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• 2024

To ensure the flutter stability of three-tower suspension bridges under skew wind, by using the computational procedure of 3D refined flutter analysis of long-span bridges under skew wind, in which structural nonlinearity, the static wind action(also known as the aerostatic effect) and the full-mode coupling effect etc., are fully considered, the flutter stability of a three-tower suspension bridge-the Taizhou Bridge over the Yangtze River in completion and during the deck erection is numerically investigated under the constant uniform skew wind, and the influences of skew wind and aerostatic effects on the flutter stability of the bridge under the service and construction conditions are assessed. The results show that the flutter critical wind speeds of three-tower suspension bridge under service and construction conditions fluctuate with the increase of wind yaw angle instead of a monotonous cosine rule as the decomposition method proposed, and reach the minimum mostly in the case of skew wind. Both the skew wind and aerostatic effects significantly reduce the flutter stability of three-tower suspension bridge under the service and construction conditions, and the combined skew wind and aerostatic effects further deteriorate the flutter stability. Both the skew wind and aerostatic effects do not change the evolution of flutter stability of the bridge during the deck erection, and compared to the service condition, they lead to a greater decrease of flutter critical wind speed of the bridge during deck erection, and the influence of the combined skew wind and aerostatic effects is more prominent. Therefore, the skew wind and aerostatic effects must be considered accurately in the flutter analysis of three-tower suspension bridges.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.255-270
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• 2019

Aerodynamic configurations of bridge decks have significant effects on the aerostatic torsional divergence and flutter forsuper long-span bridges, which are onset for selection of suitable bridge decksfor those bridges. Based on a cable-stayed bridge with double main spans of 1500 m, considering typical twin-box, stiffening truss and closed-box section, which are the most commonly used form of bridge decks and assumed that the rigidity of those section is completely equivalent, are utilized to investigate the effects of aerodynamic configurations of bridge decks on aerodynamic instability performance comprised of the aerostatic torsional divergence and flutter, by means of wind tunnel tests and numerical calculations, including three-dimensional (3D) multimode flutter analysis and nonlinear aerostatic analysis. Regarding the aerostatic torsional divergence, the results obtained in this study show twin-box section is the best, closed-box section the second-best, and the stiffening truss section the worst. Regarding the flutter, the flutter stability of the twin-box section is far better than that of the stiffening truss and closed-box section. Furthermore, wind-resistance design depends on the torsional divergence for the twin-box and stiffening truss section. However, there are obvious competitive relationships between the aerostatic torsional divergence and flutter for the closed-box section. Flutter occur before aerostatic instability at initial attack angle of $+3^{\circ}$ and $0^{\circ}$, while the aerostatic torsional divergence occur before flutter at initial attack angle of $-3^{\circ}$. The twin-box section is the best in terms of both aerostatic and flutter stability among those bridge decks. Then mechanisms of aerostatic torsional divergence are revealed by tracking the cable forces synchronous with deformation of the bridge decksin the instability process. It was also found that the onset wind velocities of these bridge decks are very similar at attack angle of $-3^{\circ}$. This indicatesthat a stable triangular structure made up of the cable planes, the tower, and the bridge deck greatly improves the aerostatic stability of the structure, while the aerodynamic effects associated with the aerodynamic configurations of the bridge decks have little effects on the aerostatic stability at initial attack angle of $-3^{\circ}$. In addition, instability patterns of the bridge depend on both the initial attack angles and aerodynamic configurations of the bridge decks. This study is helpful in determining bridge decksfor super long-span bridges in future.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.209-220
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• 2011

The cable system is generally considered to be a structural solution to increase the spanning capacity of suspension bridges. In this work, based on the Runyang Bridge over the Yangtze River, three case suspension bridges with different 3D cable systems are designed, structural dynamic characteristics, the aerostatic and aerodynamic stability are investigated numerically by 3D nonlinear aerostatic and aerodynamic analysis, and the cable system favorable to improve the wind-induced instability of long-span suspension bridges is also proposed. The results show that as compared to the example bridge with parallel cable system, the suspension bridge with inward-inclined cable system has greater lateral bending and tensional frequencies, and also better aerodynamic stability; as for the suspension bridge with outward-inclined cable system, it has less lateral bending and tensional frequencies, and but better aerostatic stability; however the suspension bridge is more prone to aerodynamic instability, and therefore considering the whole wind-induced instability, the parallel and inward-inclined cable systems are both favorable for long-span suspension bridges.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.75-84
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• 2020

The aerostatic stability analysis of a long-span suspension bridge by the Element-free Galerkin (EFG) method is presented in this paper. Nonlinear effects due to wind structure interactions should be taken into account in determining the aerostatic behavior of long-span suspension bridges. The EFG method is applied to investigate torsional divergence of suspension bridges, based on both the three components of wind loads and nonlinearities of structural geometric. Since EFG methods, which are based on moving least-square (MLS) interpolation, require only nodal data, the description of the geometry of bridge structure and boundaries consist of defining a set of nodes. A numerical example involving the three-dimensional EFG model of a suspension bridge with a span length of 888m is presented to illustrate the performance and potential of this method. The results indicate that presented method can effectively be applied for modeling suspension bridge structure and the computed results obtained using present modeling strategy for nonlinear suspension bridge structure under wind flow are encouragingly acceptable.

• 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.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.407-424
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• 2015

To explore the favorable structural system of cable-stayed bridges with ultra-kilometer main span, based on a fully self-anchored cable-stayed bridge with 1400 m main span, a partially earth-anchored cable-stayed bridge scheme with the same main span is designed. Numerical investigation on the dynamic characteristics, aerostatic and aerodynamic stability of both two bridge schemes is conducted, and the results are compared to those of a suspension bridge with similar main span, and considering from the aspect of wind stability, the feasibility of using partially earth-anchored cable-stayed bridge in super long-span bridges with ultra-kilometer main span is discussed. Moreover, the effects of structural design parameters including the length of earth-anchored girder, the number of auxiliary piers in side span, the height and width of girder, the tower height etc on the dynamic characteristics, aerostatic and aerodynamic stability of a partially earth-anchored cable-stayed bridge are analyzed, and their reasonable values are proposed. The results show that as compared to fully self-anchored cable-stayed bridge and suspension bridge with similar main span, the partially earth-anchored cable-stayed bridge has greater structural stiffness and better aerostatic and aerodynamic stability, and consequently becomes a favorable structural system for super long-span bridges with ultra-kilometer main span. The partially earth-anchored cable-stayed bridge can achieve greater stiffness and better wind stability under the cases of increasing the earth-anchored girder length, increasing the height and width of girder, setting several auxiliary piers in side span and increasing the tower height.