Buffeting Response of Vincent Thomas Bridge under Conditionally Simulated Wind

摘要

For any suspension bridge, the wind-induced vibrations are mostly studied due to some historical failure events. For a proper prediction of the wind-induced vibrations of a suspension bridge, it is necessary to use a representative wind velocity profile at the bridge site. Measurement of wind velocity at the bridge site thus plays an important role in a realistic prediction of the wind-induced response. In an effort to assess the buffeting response of the Vincent Thomas suspension bridge, which connects the city of San Pedro and Terminal Island of Los Angeles Port, recently, three anemometers have been installed at three different strategic locations on this bridge. Two of them are located on the deck level while the third one is located at the top of the east tower. These locations are chosen so that the velocity profiles can be simulated at the deck level as well as along the height of the towers. A new technique of non-Gaussian conditional simulation is proposed to conditionally simulate the wind velocity profiles by utilizing the measured wind velocities. Buffeting responses of the bridge are then evaluated by using the conditionally simulated wind velocity profiles as obtained from the proposed algorithm and a critical comparison is made with the other cases of wind velocity profile simulation.