• Wind and Structures
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.471-485
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• 2010

In comparison with the common two-tower suspension bridge, due to the lack of effective longitudinal restraint of the center tower, the three-tower suspension bridge becomes a structural system with greater flexibility, and more susceptible to the wind action. By taking a three-tower suspension bridge-the Taizhou Bridge over the Yangtze River with two main spans of 1080 m as example, effects of structural parameters including the cable sag to span ratio, the side to main span ratio, the deck's dead load, the deck's bearing system, longitudinal structural form of the center tower and the cable system on the aerodynamic stability of the bridge are investigated numerically by 3D nonlinear aerodynamic stability analysis, the favorable structural system of three-tower suspension bridge with good wind stability is discussed. The results show that good aerodynamic stability can be obtained for three-tower suspension bridge as the cable sag to span ratio is assumed ranging from 1/10 to 1/11, the central buckle are provided between main cables and the deck at midpoint of main spans, the longitudinal bending stiffness of the center tower is strengthened, and the spatial cable system or double cable system is employed.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.53-70
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• 2003

Tsing Ma Bridge in Hong Kong is the longest suspension bridge in the world carrying both highway and railway. It has two H-shape concrete towers, each of which is composed of two reinforced concrete legs and four deep transverse prestressed concrete beams. A series of wind tunnel tests have been performed to measure the aerodynamic coefficients of the tower legs and transverse beams in various arrangements. A 1:100 scaled 3D rigid model of the full bridge tower assembled from various tower components has been constructed for different test cases. The aerodynamic coefficients of the lower and upper segments of the windward and leeward tower legs and those of the transverse beams at different levels, with and without the dummy bridge deck model, were measured as a function of yaw wind angle. The effects of wind interference among the tower components and the influence of the bridge deck on the tower aerodynamic coefficients were also investigated. The results achieved can be used as the pertinent data for the comparison of the computed and field-measured fully coupled buffeting responses of the entire bridge under yaw winds.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.215-229
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• 2014

Due to the lack of effective longitudinal constraint for center tower, structural stiffness of three-tower suspension bridge becomes less than that of two-tower suspension bridge, and therefore it becomes more susceptible to the seismic action. By taking a three-tower suspension bridge-the Taizhou Highway Bridge over the Yangtze River with two main spans of 1080 m as example, structural dynamic characteristics and seismic performance of the bridge is investigated, and the effects of cable's sag to span ratio, structural stiffness of the center tower, and longitudinal constraint of the girder on seismic response of the bridge are also investigated, and the favorable structural system is discussed with respect to seismic performance. The results show that structural response under lateral seismic action is more remarkable, especially for the side towers, and therefore more attentions should be paid to the lateral seismic performance and also the side towers. Large cable's sag, flexible center tower and the longitudinal elastic cable between the center tower and the girder are favorable to improve structural seismic performance of long-span three-tower suspension bridges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.523-538
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• 2017

A series of field vibration tests are conducted on the Runyang Suspension Bridge during both the construction and operational stages. The purpose of this study is devoted to the analysis of the dynamic characteristics of the suspension tower. After the tower was erected, an array of accelerometers was deployed to study the evolution of its modal parameters during the construction process. Dynamic tests were first performed under the freestanding tower condition and then under the tower-cable condition after the superstructure was installed. Based on the identified modal parameters, the effect of the pile-soil-structure interaction on dynamic characteristics of the suspension tower is investigated. Moreover, the stiffness of the pile foundation is successfully identified using a probabilistic finite model updating method. Furthermore, challenges of identifying the dynamic properties of the tower from the coupled responses of the tower-cable system are discussed in detail. It's found that compared with the identified results from the freestanding tower, the longitudinal and torsional natural frequencies of the tower in the tower-cable system have changed significantly, while the lateral mode frequencies change slightly. The identified modal results from measurements by the structural health monitoring system further confirmed that the vibrations of the bridge subsystems (i.e., the tower, the suspended deck and the main cable) are strongly coupled with one another.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.189-198
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• 2019

This paper aims to study the mechanical performance of three-tower four-span suspension bridges with steel truss girders, including the static and dynamic characteristics of the bridge system, and more importantly, the influence of structural parameters including the side-main span ratio, sag-to-span ratio and the girder stiffness on key mechanical indices. For this purpose, the Oujiang River North Estuary Bridge which is a three-tower four-span suspension bridge with two main spans of 800m under construction in China is taken as an example in this study. This will be the first three-tower suspension bridge with steel truss girders in the world. The mechanical performance study and parametric analysis are conducted based on a validated three-dimensional spatial truss finite element model established for the Oujiang River North Estuary Bridge using MIDAS Civil. It is found that a relatively small side-main span ratio seems to be quite appropriate from the perspective of mechanical performance. And decreasing the sag-to-span ratio is an effective way to reduce the horizontal force subjected to the midtower and improve the antiskid safety of the main cable, while the vertical stiffness of the bridge will be reduced. However, the girder stiffness is shown to be of minimal significance on the mechanical performance. The findings from this paper can be used for design of three-tower suspension bridges with steel truss girders.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.311-329
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• 2015

A method for analyzing the coupled wind-vehicle-bridge system is proposed that also considers the shielding effect of the bridge tower with triangular wind barriers. The static wind load and the buffeting wind load for both the bridge and the vehicle are included. The shielding effects of the bridge tower and the triangular wind barriers are incorporated by taking the surface integral of the wind load. The inter-history iteration is adopted to solve the vehicle-bridge dynamic equations with time-varying external loads. The results show that after installing the triangular wind barriers in the area of the bridge tower, the bridge response and the vehicle safety factors change slightly. The peak value of the train car body acceleration is significantly reduced when the wind barrier size is increased.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.6
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• pp.641-649
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• 2020

The determination of midtower longitudinal stiffness has become an essential component in the preliminary design of multi-tower suspension bridges. For a specific multi-tower suspension bridge, the midtower longitudinal stiffness must be controlled within a certain range to meet the requirements of sliding resistance coefficient and deflection-to-span ratio. This study presents a numerical method to divide different types of midtower and determine rational range of longitudinal stiffness for rigid midtower. In this method, influence curves of midtower longitudinal stiffness on sliding resistance coefficient and maximum vertical deflection-to-span ratio are first obtained from the finite element analysis. Then, different types of midtower are divided based on the regression analysis of influence curves. Finally, rational range for longitudinal stiffness of rigid midtower is derived. The Oujiang River North Estuary Bridge which is a three-tower four-span suspension bridge with two main spans of 800m under construction in China is selected as the subject of this study. This will be the first three-tower four-span suspension bridge with steel truss girders and concrete midtower in the world. The proposed method provides an effective and feasible tool for engineers to design midtower of multi-tower suspension bridges.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2023

To evaluate the wind shielding effect of bridge towers with multiple limbs on high-speed trains, a wind tunnel test was conducted to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics of vehicles traversing multi-limb towers, which represented a combination of the steady aerodynamic coefficient of the vehicle-bridge system and wind environment around the tower. Subsequently, the analysis model of wind-vehicle-bridge (WVB) system considering the additional moments caused by lift and drag forces under nonuniform wind was proposed, and the reliability and accuracy of the proposed model of WVB system were verified using another model. Finally, the factors influencing the wind shielding effect of multi-limb towers were analyzed. The results indicate that the wind speed distributions along the span exhibit two sudden changes, and the wind speed generally decreases with increasing wind direction angle. The pitching and yawing accelerations of vehicles under nonuniform wind loads significantly increase due to the additional pitching and yawing moments. The sudden change values of the lateral and yawing accelerations caused by the wind shielding effect of multi-limb tower are 0.43 m/s² and 0.11 rad/s² within 0.4 s, respectively. The results indicate that the wind shielding effect of a multi-limb tower is the controlling factor in WVB systems.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.211-234
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• 2016

Super long-span bridges provide people with great convenience, but they also bring traffic safety problems caused by strong wind owing to their high decks. In this paper, the large eddy simulation together with dynamic mesh technology in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used to explore the mechanism of a moving vehicle's transient aerodynamic force in crosswind, the regularity and mechanism of the vehicle's aerodynamic forces when it passes through a bridge tower's wake zone in crosswind. By comparing the calculated results and those from wind tunnel tests, the reliability of the methods used in the paper is verified on a moving vehicle's aerodynamic forces in a bridge tower's wake region. A vehicle's aerodynamic force coefficient decreases sharply when it enters into the wake region, and reaches its minimum on the leeward of the bridge tower where exists a backflow region. When a vehicle moves on the outermost lane on the windward direction and just passes through the backflow region, it will suffer from negative lateral aerodynamic force and yaw moment in the bridge tower's wake zone. And the vehicle's passing ruins the original vortex structure there, resulting in that the lateral wind on the right side of the bridge tower does not change its direction but directly impact on the vehicle's windward. So when the vehicle leaves from the backflow region, it will suffer stronger aerodynamic than that borne by the vehicle when it just enters into the region. Other cases of vehicle moving on different lane and different directions were also discussed thoroughly. The results show that the vehicle's pneumatic safety performance is evidently better than that of a vehicle on the outermost lane on the windward.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.495-514
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• 2014

The performance of passive control system for the seismic protection of a multi-tower cable-stayed bridge with the application of partially longitudinal constraint system is investigated. The seismic responses of the Jiashao Bridge, a six-tower cable-stayed bridge using the partially longitudinal constraint system are studied under real earthquake ground motions. The effects of the passive control devices including the viscous fluid dampers and elastic cables on the seismic responses of the bridge are examined by taking different values of parameters of the devices. Further, the optimization design principle of passive control system using viscous fluid dampers is presented to determine the optimized parameters of the viscous fluid dampers. The results of the investigations show that the control objective of the multi-tower cable-stayed bridge with the partially longitudinal constraint system is to reduce the base shears and moments of bridge towers longitudinally restricted with the bridge deck. The viscous fluid dampers are found to be more effective than elastic cables in controlling the seismic responses. The optimized parameters for the viscous fluid dampers are determined following the principle that the peak displacement at the end of bridge deck reaches to the maximum value, which can yield maximum reductions in the base shears and moments of bridge towers longitudinally restricted with the bridge deck, with slight increases in the base shears and moments of bridge towers longitudinally unrestricted with the bridge deck.