Vortex-induced Vibration Reliability Analysis in Cable-stayed Bridges: Wind and Aerodynamic Uncertainties

Abstract

This paper proposes a vortex-induced vibration (VIV) reliability analysis method based on the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) principle in which constraints are specified in terms of fractional moments involving uncertain wind characteristics, structural properties, and bluff-body aerodynamics. The multiplicative dimensional reduction method (M-DRM) is used to calculate the fractional moments. A new threshold is obtained based on the stopping sight distance in the highway engineering technique standard, which is less strict than the China–Japan standard and the British code and thus better-suited to VIV reliability evaluation. A long-span cable-stayed bridge model is used to illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method in comparison to Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) on three performance functions of VIV reliability. The results indicate that VIV maximum amplitude and wind speed failure probability are not sensitive to the selected performance function, but the effect of the wind attack angle on probability is significant. The M-DRM provides a workable alternative approach to analyzing the highly complex VIV reliability of long-span bridges.