Three-dimensional Fluid-Structure Interaction Analysis for Bridge Aeroelasticity

In bridge design practice, especially in case of large span bridges, wind loading can be extremely dangerous. Since the collapse of the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge in 1941, bridge flutter assessment has become a major concern in bridge design. In the early ages, wind tunnel tests were made in order to assess the aerodynamic performance of bridges. These tests required scaled models of the bridges representing the structure by insuring certain similarity laws. The wind tunnel models can be either full-aeroelastic models or section models. The full models are more detailed and precise while the section models can show a two-dimensional slice of the bridge deck only. Such wind tunnel tests are really expensive and time consuming tools in bridge design therefore there is a strong demand to replace them. In this paper a novel approach for bridge deck flutter assessment based on numerical simulation will be presented.