Numerical assessment on time-varying temperature field of bridge tower under solar radiation

摘要

Long span suspension bridges are subjected to daily, seasonal and yearly environmental thermal effects induced by solar radiation and ambient air temperature. This paper aims to investigate the temperature distribution of a tower of a long span suspension bridge. Two-dimensional heat transfer models are utilized to determine the time-dependent temperature distribution of the bridge tower of the bridge. The solar radiation model is utilized to examine the time-varying temperature distribution. Finite element models are constructed for the bridge tower to compute the temperature distribution. The numerical models can successfully predict the structural temperature field at different time. The methodology employed in the paper can be applied to other long-span bridges as well.