Comparison of Ambient Vibration Response of the Runyang Suspension Bridge under Skew Winds with Time-Domain Numerical Predictions

Existing buffeting theories and methods for dealing with skew winds are summarized. A modified version of the mean wind decomposition method is described that directly uses wind monitoring data from structural health monitoring systems. A method for time-domain buffeting analysis is presented and implemented in ANSYS, in which self-excited forces are modeled as elemental aeroelastic stiffness and damping matrices by element Matrix27. The entire numerical procedure is implemented in MATLAB and ANSYS, and the buffeting responses can be conveniently computed with very concise input data. This method is applied to the buffeting analysis of the Runyang Suspension Bridge during Typhoon Matsa. The measured data of wind characteristics are used to predict the buffeting responses of the bridge with a finite-element model. The predicted buffeting responses are compared with those from field measurements. A reasonably good agreement between the calculation and the measurement validates the effectiveness of the method. Finally, the characteristics and mechanism of buffeting responses of long-span bridges are discussed to provide references for further studies. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)BE.1943-5592.0000168. (C) 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.