COMPARISONS BETWEEN WIND-TUNNEL TESTS ON A FULL AEROELASTIC MODEL OF THE PROPOSED BRIDGE OVER STRETTO-DI-MESSINA AND NUMERICAL RESULTS

The final draft of the proposed bridge over Stretto di Messina was concluded by a 1:250 scale full bridge aeroelastic model study, that was constructed and tested at DMI in the ''Martin Jensen'' wind tunnel. The tests aimed at verifying the aerodynamic behaviour of the bridge in smooth and turbulent flow, for flow perpendicular to the bridge axis and at yaw angles, and to verify the threshold of the flutter instability. The analytical approach in the time domain, developed by Politecnico di Milano in order to simulate the bridge response to turbulent wind is described here. The experimental results are presented and compared to the numerical results.