Investigation on influence factors of buffeting response of bridges and its aeroelastic model verification for Xiaoguan Bridge

Abstract

A time-domain procedure for analyzing buffeting responses of bridges is presented and implemented in ANSYS, formulated taking into account the self-excited forces, aerodynamic admittance functions (AAFs) and the coherence of buffeting forces. The buffeting forces simulated based on the span-wise coherence of buffeting forces and also considering the aerodynamic admittance functions, together with the steady aerodynamic forces are applied as external loads to the structural model to analyze the buffeting responses in time domain. In order to account for self-excited forces, elemental aeroelastic stiffness and aeroelastic damping matrices for spatial beam elements are derived following the quasi-steady theory and are incorporated in buffeting analysis through the user-defined Matrix27 element in ANSYS. The procedure is applied to the Xiaoguan Bridge, China, during the longest double cantilever stage of construction. The wind tunnel tests of four typical bridge section models are performed to measure the aerodynamic parameters of the bridge including the steady aerodynamic coefficients and aerodynamic admittance functions. The bridge aeroelastic model testing is also carried out, and coherence functions of buffeting forces are derived from the measured buffeting forces. The measurement results of the displacements and internal forces are compared with those obtained from the analytical predictions. The influence factors, including aeroelastic effect, aerodynamic admittance functions and coherence of buffeting forces, are studied in some detail. It is shown the present method inclusive of above factors gives much closer predictions of buffeting responses to the experimental results.