Aeroelastic analysis of long span bridges via indicial functions considering geometric and material nonlinearity

A time domain approach for predicting the flutter response of long-span bridges was presented. The unsteady aerodynamic forces were presented by the indicial functions through a convolution integral, whereas the nonlinear least square method was used to calculate the aerodynamic indicial parameters. The nonlinear dynamic analysis which includes both the geometric and material nonlinearities due to the unsteady self excited aerodynamics force was considered. Numerical analyses were then performed using three dimensional finite element model of the suspension bridge. The results show that the geometric and material nonlinearities have a significant influence on the critical velocity and the response of long-span bridges.