Evaluation of mast measurements and wind tunnel terrain models to describe spatially variable wind field characteristics for long-span bridge design

Abstract

The quality of the information about the wind field characteristics is crucial for accurately predicting the structural response of a long-span bridge subjected to dynamic wind loads. In this paper, in situ mast measurements and terrain model wind tunnel tests are compared with full-scale measurements of the wind field along the Hardanger Bridge girder. The aim is to investigate the performance of mast measurements and wind tunnel terrain model tests in predicting the wind field characteristics for longspan bridges in complex terrains. Wind field spatial variations and statistical distributions for the mean wind velocity and turbulence intensity are investigated. Extreme value statistics have been applied to compare the mean wind velocity recordings from two different measurement periods. Results showing terrain-induced effects on the wind directions, turbulence intensities and mean wind velocities are presented. Simultaneous spanwise wind profiles for the mean wind velocity and along-wind turbulence intensity are compared between the terrain model wind tunnel tests and the full-scale measurements, and large nonuniformities are identified. The extreme profiles of the turbulence intensities vary as much as 100% along the span, and the mean wind velocity profiles vary up to 50% along the span.

Inverse Identification of Buffeting and Self-Excited Wind Loads on the Hardanger Bridge From Acceleration Data

“…5. Inhomogeneous features in the wind field is not uncommon for this bridge location [29], and in this case an apparent trend of higher velocities for one part of the bridge is observed. Although robust testing for (non-)stationarity of time series generally is difficult, the mean wind velocity could intuitively also be said to have weakly non-stationary features for this 60 minute period.…”

Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Wind Characteristics over Mountainous Valley Bridge Site Considering Improved Boundary Transition Sections

“…Then, select the maximum in each column of X = (x ij ) 8×6 to obtain the optimal objects S + 0 and select the minimum in each column to get the worst object S − 0 . The correlation coefficient of each scheme with the optimal object and the worst object in each index can be calculated by Equations (11) and (12),…”

Aerodynamic Effect of Non-uniform Wind Profiles for Long-Span Bridges

“…The wind rose shown in Fig. 2 is plotted on top of a map showing the surrounding topography, and it should be noted that the surrounding mountains reach up to above 1000 m. For a more thorough description of the surrounding topography, the reader is referred to Lystad et al 2018). 3 Non-uniform wind profiles…”

“…Long-span bridges located in complex terrain can be subjected to large wind field variations along the bridge span, as shown in Lystad et al (2018). Long-span bridges are often designed under the assumption of wind field homogeneity, however this assumption may not be valid for bridges located in complex terrain such as the mountainous landscape along the west coast of Norway.…”