Abstract
The characteristics of wind- and rain-wind-induced vibrations of bridge stay cables are studied by using ambient vibrations records acquired on a cable-stayed bridge. Mean wind speed and wind-cable angle, as well as the occurrence of rainfalls, were investigated to diagnose a possible excitation mechanism promoting the onset of large heave amplitude oscillations, which were occasionally reported. Light rainfall, mean wind speed values between 8 ms−1 and 12 ms−1 and wind-cable angle ranging 45∘ to 65∘ were found to be critical conditions for the onset of large amplitude vibrations for the cases at hand. A single-mode response (eigenmode 3) associated with reduced velocities around 35 was generally activated during large cable oscillations (peak-to-peak amplitudes of twice the cable diameter) in wet conditions. The simultaneous video camera recordings also contributed to an improved understanding of the upper rainwater rivulet formation and the mechanism of stay cable vibrations in wet state.
Highlights
Large amplitude vibrations of bridge stay cables or, more in general, inclined cables, are mostly due to rain-wind-induced excitation, high-reduced velocity vortex shedding and dry inclined cable galloping [1]
The paper presents the main findings from a monitoring campaign tailored to study the bridge stay cable vibrations on the Stavanger City Bridge (Norway)
The observed rain-wind-induced vibrations contributed to an improved understanding of the phenomenon in full-scale
Summary
Large amplitude vibrations of bridge stay cables or, more in general, inclined cables, are mostly due to rain-wind-induced excitation, high-reduced velocity vortex shedding and dry inclined cable galloping [1]. The large amplitude vibrations of inclined cables at high Reynolds numbers can be described by different possibly interconnected aerodynamic phenomena. The low-frequency unsteady variations of the flow around an inclined cable within the critical Reynolds number range were found to be important for the onset of large amplitude vibrations [12,13]. In-plane rain-wind-induced vibrations (RWIVs) of bridge stay cables were reported by Wianecki [14] and, later on, extensively described based on full-scale observations [10,15,16,17,18,19,20].
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