Direct identification of flutter derivatives and aerodynamic admittances of bridge decks

Flutter derivatives and aerodynamic admittances provide basis of predicting the critical wind speed in flutter and buffeting analysis of long-span cable-supported bridges. In this paper, one popular stochastic system identification technique, covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification (SSI in short), is first presented for estimation of the flutter derivatives and aerodynamic admittances of bridge decks from their random responses in turbulent flow. Numerical simulations of an ideal thin plate are adopted to extract these aerodynamic parameters to evaluate the applicability of the present method. Then wind tunnel tests of a streamlined thin plate model and a Pi type blunt bridge section model were conducted in turbulent flow and the flutter derivatives and aerodynamic admittances are determined by the SSI technique. The identified aerodynamic parameters are compared with the theoretical ones and the results indicate the applicability of the current method. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.