Influence of wind speed spatial non-uniformity on the aerostatic and aerodynamic behaviors of long-span suspension bridges

With increasing of bridge span length, the wind speed becomes non-uniform in space, which will affect the aerostatic and aerodynamic behaviors of long-span suspension bridges. Considering the non-uniformity of wind speed in space, an approach of three-dimensional nonlinear aerostatic and aerodynamic analysis is presented, in which the geometric nonlinearity of bridge structures, the aerostatic and aerodynamic nonlinearities due to the wind-structure interactions are all involved. The method is used to investigate the effect of wind speed spatial non-uniformity on the aerostatic and aerodynamic behaviors of a long-span suspension bridge with a main span of 1490 in. The results show that the wind speed spatial non-uniformity has an important influence on the aerostatic and aerodynamic behaviors of long-span suspension bridges.