Bridge vibration under complex wind field and corresponding measurements: A review

Abstract

Due to increased demands in transportation development, bridge construction has been extended to areas with complex wind fields. In addition to common flow features such as high wind speeds and strong turbulence intensity, in coastal areas, bridges are likely to be exposed to non-stationary and non-Gaussian high-speed wind fields during hurricane events. Bridges built in mountainous regions will experience varying wind directions, incident angles of attack (AOA), and wind speed variation due to undulating terrain. The complex wind fields are challenging to the bridge engineering community to which accurate calculation methods and suppression measures for bridge vibration are urgently required. In this paper, state-of-the-art research results are introduced through three categories: (a) the distinctive characteristics of complex wind fields in offshore and mountainous areas, (b) the categories of wind-induced vibrations for bridges, and (c) the suppression measures employed in engineering practices. Until now, the studies regarding the coupled bridge vibration in complex wind fields have made considerable progress, but a richer database of actual wind measurement results and more efficient simulation methods still need to be further established.

Keywords

• Complex wind field
• Long-span bridge
• Vibration suppression
• Buffeting
• VIV
• Flutter