Abstract
Full-scale monitoring of the Hardanger Bridge has revealed significant turbulence-induced variability in the measured acceleration response. In this paper, a probabilistic model is used to describe the uncertain turbulence parameters, and the environmental contour method is used to investigate the long-term root-mean-square (RMS) response of the Hardanger Bridge. The results show that turbulence-induced variability has a significant impact on the bridge girder section moments. It is also interesting that the critical combination of environmental parameters does not necessarily involve the maximum mean wind velocity. By using the environmental contour method to account for turbulence uncertainty, the scattered acceleration RMS response measurements from the Hardanger Bridge are successfully eclipsed by 100-year return period response estimates, showing vast improvements compared with the traditional design methodology. The investigations presented in this paper show that the environmental contour method can be used to improve the accuracy and reduce the uncertainty in buffeting response calculations for long-span bridge design.
Highlights
The trend in international bridge engineering is that increasingly longer passages are crossed with long-span bridges
The findings show that the design storm does not correspond to the event of the maximum mean wind velocity, but the turbulence parameters should be treated as stochastic variables
The environmental contour method is suitable for design purposes, and the investigations presented in this paper show that it can be used for turbulent wind loads to improve the accuracy and reduce the uncertainty in buffeting response calculations for long-span bridges
Summary
The trend in international bridge engineering is that increasingly longer passages are crossed with long-span bridges. Other probabilistic frameworks for buffeting response have been suggested in the literature [30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37], but in long-term analyses, the probabilistic considerations are isolated to the dynamic extreme response, making it very interesting for practical design purposes Probabilistic approaches, such as the environmental contour method, rely on a solid statistical description of the environmental variables, and some probabilistic models for uncertain turbulence parameters can be found in the literature [5,38]. The environmental contour method is suitable for design purposes, and the investigations presented in this paper show that it can be used for turbulent wind loads to improve the accuracy and reduce the uncertainty in buffeting response calculations for long-span bridges
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