Structural control of a wind excited suspension bridge model accounting for motion induced wind forces

Modern design of long suspension bridges must satisfy at the same time performance and safety under several different conditions; structural control solutions can give an important contribution to the high standards of performance, feasibility and safety expected from these class of structures. Herein, an updated model version of an existing suspension bridge, developed at the numerical level in the ANSYS FE work frame starting from original data, is used to evaluate a control strategy, designed and proven effective for a simplified model of the buffeting wind forces, with a more refined representation of the fluid interaction forces. Wind actions are applied on the towers and the cables considering drag forces only, while for the deck a more refined indicial formulation is adopted to reflect coupling with the bridge orientation and motion. The optimization process for passive control systems, previously applied with the simplified model of the buffeting excitation, is here reevaluated within this more refined version of the wind-structure interaction. It is shown that there is no variation of the previously identified optimal passive configuration. © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group.