Long-span suspension bridges, due to their flexibility and lightness, are much prone to the wind loads, aerodynamics performance has become an important aspect of the design of long-span suspension bridges. In this study, the static wind load acting on the suspension bridge during erection has been investigated through wind tunnel test and numerical analysis. The wind tunnel test was performed using a 1:50 scale section model of the bridge, the static wind load acting on the section model was measured with varying attack angles. Numerical method used here was computational fluid dynamics simulation, a two-dimensional model is adopted in the first stage of the analysis, then the SIMPLE algorithm was employed to solve the governing equations. The analytical results were compared with the wind tunnel test data, it was shown from the study that the results of CFD simulation was good agreement with that of the wind tunnel test.
Experimental and numerical evaluation of the wind load on the 516 Arouca pedestrian suspension bridge
