Probabilistic reassessment and calibration for flutter instability of cable-supported bridges

摘要

Based on an available reliability analysis model to bridge flutter under extreme winds, the objective of the paper is to make the probabilistic reassessment and calibration for flutter instability of ten cable-supported bridges in China. The annual maximum wind speed at the bridge site is assumed to follow a Gumbel distribution, and is directly calculated by the standard wind pressure specified in the Chinese design code. The critical wind speed due to bridge flutter is experimentally determined by wind tunnel tests using an aeroelastic full model and is approximately treated as a log-normally distributed variable. The extended design point approach based on the first order reliability method has been used in calculating the failure probabilities of ten cable-supported bridges.