Aerodynamic Mitigation Research Articles

Computational study on aerodynamic mitigation of wind-induced, large-amplitude vibrations of stay cables with strakes

Modifications of circular cylinder surfaces, such as strakes and helical wires, effectively mitigate Kármán vortex-induced vibrations normal to flow and have been applied to the reduction of large-amplitude vibrations of stay cables in bridges, which occur under wind oblique to a cable with or without rainfall. This aerodynamic control method cannot be fully effective without understanding the behavior of the flow around and the associated forces on oblique cables. To address this issue, flow around a yawed cylinder with various strake patterns was studied using three-dimensional detached eddy simulation (DES) at Reynolds number of 1.4×10 5. Results demonstrated that strake patterns strongly influence the development of flow structures around a yawed cylinder and therefore the associated forces on the cylinder. The results suggest that particular strake patterns can mitigate large-amplitude and low-frequency vibrations of stay cables induced by oblique wind.

Optimum Control System for Seismic and Aerodynamic Flutter Response of Cable-Stayed Bridge Using Magnetorheological Dampers

Control of cable-stayed bridge flutter for earthquake and aerodynamic hazard mitigation represents a relatively new area of research. This paper proposes a new optimized smart control system to mitigate the cable-stayed bridge flutter due to seismic and aerodynamic vibration. A Magnetorheological (MR) fluid damper, which belongs to the class of controllable fluid dampers, is proposed for use in a control strategy for mitigating its effect on the cable-stayed bridge. Genetic algorithm is adopted to determine the flutter acceleration levels, and corresponding forces of MR dampers. The optimized forces values from MR dampers are studied under the effect of five strong earthquakes recorded, known as El-Centro, Mexico City, San Fernando, Ker Country, and Northridge earthquakes. The time delay between the monitoring system and the actuator response is also studied. The simulation and optimization results shows that the proposed control strategy using MR dampers is the promising one of the applicable control methods to reduce the seismic and aerodynamic flutter vibration of the stayed bridge.