Analysis of Flutter Stability of the Xihoumen Bridge in the Completed Stage

Abstract

Aerodynamic stability is an issue in the wind-resistant design of long-span bridges, flutter is an aerodynamic instability phenomenon that occurs due to interactions between wind and structural motion. The Xihoumen Bridge is the second long suspension bridge in the world, the aeroelastic performance of the Xihoumen Bridge is investigated by wind tunnel testing and an analytical approach. In the case, wind-tunnel testing was performed using an aeroelastic full model of the bridge, and two section models of the bridge. Flutter derivatives of bridge decks are routinely extracted from wind tunnel section model experiments for the assessment of performance against wind loading, the analytical method used here were a two-dimensional flutter analysis and a multi-mode analysis in the frequency domain. The analytical results were compared with the wind tunnel test data; it showed that the flutter analysis results were good agreement with the wind-tunnel test data.