Effects of wind barriers on running safety of trains for urban rail cable-stayed bridge

Abstract

Considering the wind barriers induced aerodynamic characteristic variations of both bridge deck and trains, this paper studies the effects of wind barriers on the safety and stability of trains as they run through an urban rail transit cable-stayed bridge which tends to be more vulnerable to wind due to its relatively low stiffness and lightweight. For the bridge equipped with wind barriers of different characteristics, the aerodynamic coefficients of trains and bridge decks are obtained from wind tunnel test firstly. And then, the space vibration equations of the wind-train-bridge system are established using the experimentally obtained aerodynamic coefficients. Through solving the dynamic equations, one can calculate the dynamic responses both the trains and bridge. The results indicate that setting wind barriers can effectively reduce the dynamic responses of both the trains and bridge, even though more wind forces acting on the bridge are caused by wind barriers. In addition, for urban rail transit cable-stayed bridges located in strong wind environment, the wind barriers are recommended to be set with 20% porosity and 2.5 m height according to the calculation results of cases with wind barriers porosity and height varying in two wide ranges, i.e., 10% - 40% and 2.0 m to 4.0 m, respectively.