Effects of central stabilizing barriers on flutter performances of a suspension bridge with a truss-stiffened deck under skew winds

Abstract

To improve the flutter performance of a suspension bridge with a 1088-m-span truss-stiffened deck, the aerodynamic measures of upper and lower central stabilizing barriers were investigated at first via wind tunnel tests of sectional model under the normal wind condition. The yaw wind effect on the flutter performance of the bridge with the above aerodynamic measures was then examined via a series of wind tunnel tests of oblique sectional models. The test results show that the effect of the lower central stabilizing barrier on the flutter critical wind speed is remarkably different from that of the upper central stabilizing barrier for both the normal and skew wind cases. The inclination angle +3° is the most unfavorable inclination angle to the flutter performance of the truss-stiffened suspension bridge no matter whether the aerodynamic control measures are adopted or not. Furthermore, for most cases, the lowest flutter critical wind speed occurs when the incident wind deviates from the normal direction of the bridge span by a small yaw angle between 5° and 10°.