A Numerical Technique for Determining Aerodynamic Derivatives of a Suspension Bridge Deck

Abstract

A novel two-dimensional numerical solution methodology based on variable wind angle of attack for numerical simulation of fluid-structure interaction associated with rotations of bridge deck section is proposed. In this methodology, the deck is considered fixed in the computational domain, while incremental inclination of flow approach and wind angle attack are applied to far-field boundaries of the initial mesh. The numerical simulation is carried out to calculate aerodynamic flutter derivatives of Great Belt East Bridge deck using commercial computational fluid dynamic code of ANSYS FLUENT combined with a developed MATLAB code for post-processing of the aerodynamic derivatives. The utilized finite volume flow solver is applied for two-dimensional flow simulation around structural sections. Aerodynamic flutter parameters of a thin flat plate and bridge deck are determined based on the proposed methodology. Comparison between the analysis results with simulated values and the measurements of wind tunnel tests or the Theodorsen’s solution shows that the accuracy of the present modeling strategy in prediction of the aerodynamic derivatives is promising.