Coupled aerodynamic and hydrodynamic response of a long span bridge suspended from floating towers

Abstract eng:
The present study introduces a fully coupled time-domain analysis of a multi-span suspension bridge supported with two floating towers, which is one of the proposed concepts to cross the wide and deep fjords along the west coast of Norway. The time-domain analysis is performed with a finite element model considering the turbulent wind, irregular non-uniform ocean wave and sheared ocean current simultaneously. The numerical results suggest that the bridge response under extreme condition with a return period of 100 years is dominated by the low frequency modes. Especially for the vertical and torsional directions, the largest response contributions are due to the vertical and torsional motion components of the first three horizontal motion-dominated modes. Investigation into the aerodynamic and hydrodynamic load contribution reveals that over 80% of the bridge response is due to the aerodynamic excitation, whereas the hydrodynamic loads acting on the floating towers are small due to the counteracting aerodynamic damping effects under the extreme environmental conditions considered.

• Export as: BibTeX | MARC | MARCXML | DC | EndNote | NLM | RefWorks
• Add to your basket