Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797

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Computer simulation of bu€eting actions of suspension

bridges under turbulent wind
Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee*
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
Received 28 December 1998; accepted 10 June 1999

Abstract

Suspension bridges are long-span ¯exible structures susceptible to various types of wind induced vibrations such
as bu€eting actions. In this paper, a three dimensional ®nite-element model formulated to deal with suspension
bridges under turbulent wind is presented. In this model, all sources of geometric nonlinearity such as cable sag,
force-bending moment interaction in the bridge deck and towers, and changes of bridge geometry due to large
displacements, are fully considered. The wind loads, composed of steady-state wind loads, bu€eting loads and self-
excited loads, are converted into time domain by using the computer simulation technique. The Newmark-b step by
step numerical integration algorithm is used to calculate the bu€eting responses of bridges. Compared with the
results obtained by classical bu€eting theory, the validity of the simulation is proved. 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.

Keywords: Suspension bridge; Bu€eting; Wind simulation; Geometrically nonlinear

1. Introduction wind actions which form the foundation of bridge

Early this century, with the rapid development of
construction material and technology, many long-span
suspension bridges were built all over the world. How-
ever, these bridges exhibit special characteristics such
as high ¯exibility, low structural damping and light in
weight, which are very susceptible to wind actions. The
Tacoma disaster in 1940 aroused engineers' attentions
to the vibration characteristics of suspension bridges
and the responses to wind excitations. Since then nu-
merous researchers [1±4] have made signi®cant contri-
butions to the stability of suspension bridges under
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +852-2540-8829; fax: +852-
2559-5337.
E-mail address: hreclkk.hkucc.hku.hk (P.K.K. Lee).
aeroelasticity.
Bu€eting action is a type of vibration motion induced
by turbulent wind. As natural wind is not steady but tur-
bulent in character, wind ¯uctuations in the vertical and
horizontal direction are random in space and thus, the
wind pressures along the bridges are random in time and
space. Depending on the spectral distribution of the
pressure vectors, certain modes of vibration of the
bridge may selectively be excited. In fact, these wind
induced bu€eting actions are related not only to wind
speed, but also to the shape of the cross-section of the
bridge deck and the interaction between the bridge and
wind motion [5]. The turbulence induced bu€eting re-
sponse will unavoidably occur at both bridge construc-
tion and completion stages. Sometimes, a large response
may cause fatigue of bridge elements, discomfort to
users and even endanger the safety of the bridge. With

0045-7949/00/$ - see front matter 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 4 5 - 7 9 4 9 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 1 9 7 - 2
788 Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797
Fig. 1. Wind components at a point along the bridge axis.
high expectations on the performance of modern suspen-
sion bridges, bu€eting analysis has been one of the most
important aspect of structural reliability under turbulent
wind.
The traditional bu€eting analysis method resorts to
model superposition in a frequency domain that is lim-
ited to the linearization scope. However, it does not
re¯ect the whole response procedure of bridges and
hence, cannot accurately analyse fatigue of bridge el-
ements and assess service comfortability of bridges
under wind action. In this paper, a time±domain simu-
lation method is proposed to analyse the bu€eting re-
sponse of suspension bridges under turbulent wind
conditions. The entire bu€eting procedure can be accu-
rately re¯ected to provide useful information for further
study on element fatigue, bridge comfortability as well
as bridge safety. In this method, a three dimensional
®nite-element model, which takes into account all geo-
metric nonlinearity, has been developed to model sus-
pension bridges. Based on Scanlan's method [6], the
wind loads including steady-state wind loads, bu€eting
loads and self-excited loads are described as functions of
aerodynamic parameters which can be obtained through
wind tunnel tests. These wind loads are converted into
time domain by using the computer simulation tech-
nique. Finally, the Newmark-b step by step numerical
integration algorithm is used to calculate the bu€eting
responses of bridges. Comparing with the results
obtained by the classical bu€eting theory, the validity of
the simulation method has been con®rmed.
2. Wind forces
According to the classical airfoil theory, it is
assumed that the wind velocity at one point along a
bridge comprises three components: one for mean part
U, one for ¯uctuating part u(x, t ) in the along-wind
direction and one for ¯uctuating part w(x, t ) in the
vertical direction. These three wind components
impose drag D, lift L and moment M on a bridge
deck, as shown in Fig. 1. In bu€eting analysis, the
total wind loads are made up of steady-state wind
loads, bu€eting loads and self-excited loads.
2.1. Steady-state wind loads
Steady-state wind load is only related to the mean
part of oncoming wind components. At the mean wind
speed U of the oncoming ¯ow at the deck elevation,
the steady-state drag, lift and moment can be
expressed as follows:
D ˆ 0:5rU 2 HCD …1a†
L ˆ 0:5rU 2 BCL …1b†
M ˆ 0:5rU 2 B 2 CM …1c†
where r is the air density, B is the deck width and H is
the deck height. CD , CL and CM are the drag, lift and
moment coecients obtained by wind tunnel tests on
bridge cross-section model.
During the bu€eting procedure of the bridge, the
steady-state wind loads are assumed to act on the
bridge deck at all times. Therefore, these can be
regarded as static loads which only shift the bridge's
equilibrium position to a new position and are not
directly related to bu€eting responses.
2.2. Bu€eting loads
Bu€eting loads are caused by the ¯uctuating part of
the wind velocity of which the along-wind part u and
the vertical part w are much smaller than the mean
wind velocity U. On the assumption of neglecting u2 ,
w2 and uw, bu€eting loads per unit span can be
 Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797 789

expressed according to the quasi-steady theory as fol- where

lows:
  C…x, n† ˆ eÿ2Knjxj=U ˆ COH 2D …x, n†;
1 u…x, t†
Lb …x, t† ˆ ÿ rU 2 B 2CL …a0 † ‡ C L0 …a0 † COHD …x, n† ˆ eÿKnjxj=U
2 U
 
A w…x, t† K is the coherence decaying coecient, S(n ) is the tar-
‡ CD …a0 † …2a†
B U get spectrum, xk is the generation spot, x is the dis-
tance between two generated spots, nj is the frequency
 and fkj is the starting phase which is uniformly dis-
1 u…x, t† tributed between 0 and 2p:
Mb …x, t† ˆ rU 2 B 2 2CM …a†
2 U Very frequently, Simiu spectrum is chosen as the
 longitudinal wind target spectrum and Panofsky±
0 w…x, t†
‡CM …a0 † …2b† McCormick spectrum is chosen as the vertical wind
U
target spectrum. Kovacs et al. also suggested that the
decaying coecient can be taken as 4.5 for longitudi-
 
1 A u…x, t† nal and 7.5 for transverse velocity components. The
Db …x, t† ˆ rU 2 B 2 CD …a0 † …2c† bu€eting loads along bridge decks can be calculated by
2 B U
substituting the generated ¯uctuation wind velocities
a0 is the e€ective attack angle of the wind. CL0 and CM0 into Eq. (2a)±(2c).
are slopes of CL and CM at the angle of a0 : A is the
cross-wind projected area (per unit span) normal to
the mean wind speed. The other symbols have the 2.3. Self-excited loads
same de®nition as above.
However, it is quite dicult to obtain the represen- The self-excited loads are caused by interaction
tative ¯uctuating parts of the wind in practice. This is between wind motion and the structure. It involves the
the reason why the computer simulation technique is interaction of aerodynamic and inertial forces with the
used to generate the ¯uctuating wind according to the elastic structure such that the aerodynamic forces inject
wind spectrum on site. It is assumed that wind motion additional energy into the oscillating structure and
is a multi-correlated random process. At any point increase the magnitude of vibration sometimes to cata-
along the bridge deck, the wind motion is in random strophic levels. It has been a tradition that the self-
procession. At the same time, the wind motion at a excited loads are expressed in the form of indicial func-
point is also related to that at any other point. Kovacs tions suggested by Scanlan [8]. However, Lin [9] con-
et al. [7] have presented a method to simulate the ¯uc- sidered that there are some redundancies in the
tuating wind velocity along a bridge deck. In their classical formulations. Based on the assumptions that
method, the ¯uctuating wind velocities u(x, t ) and the self-excited loads are generated by a linear mechan-
w(x, t ) are assumed to consist of a series of com- ism, Lin suggested another simple mathematical model
ponents in the frequency domain from 0.001 to 1.5 for self-excited forces, for investigation of the aerody-
Hz. This is the scale at which wind speed has the namic stability of long span suspension bridges. The
greatest e€ect on the bu€eting responses of bridges. self-excited loads are expressed in terms of convolution
Each component is a complex vector, i.e., each has an integrals between bridge deck motion and the impulse
absolute size and a starting phase. The simulation response function which is shown to be equivalent to
takes place similar to a usual random signal: the com- the classical indicial function type representation. Lin's
ponent vectors are rotated with the speed of their own model can be summarized as:
angular velocity and are summed vectorially. The ¯uc- …t
tuating wind velocity constitutes the real part of the Mse …t† ˆ Ma …t† ‡ Mh …t† ˆ fMh …t ÿ t†h…t† dt
resultant. The turbulent part of the momentary wind ÿ1
velocity in point x can be generated from Davenport's …t …4a†
coherence formula in : ‡ fMa …t ÿ t†a…t† dt
1
u…x, t† ˆ
2v 3 …t
X u u 2S…nj †Dn X ÿ

6u X ÿ C x ÿ x , n cos 2pn t ‡ f Lse …t† ˆ La …t† ‡ Lh …t† ˆ fLh …t ÿ t†h…t† dt

k j … j kj 7
j
4t C 2 xk , nj k 5 ÿ1
…t …4b†
k
‡ fLa …t ÿ t†a…t† dt
…3† 1
790 Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797

Fig. 2. Suspension bridge idealization in three dimensional space.

…t
Dse …t† ˆ Da …t† ‡ Dp …t† ˆ fDp …t ÿ t†p…t† dt Here, Ai , H i and P i …i ˆ 1, 4† are nondimensional
ÿ1 ¯utter derivatives obtained by wind tunnel tests on
…t …4c†
cross-section of the deck.
‡ fDa …t ÿ t†a…t† dt From classical airfoil theory, the transfer functions
1
may reasonably be approximated by rational functions,
where fMa …t†, fMh …t†, fLa …t†, fLh …t†, fDa …t† and fDp …t† are speci®cally for transfer functions of ®rst order linear
response functions due to unit impulse displacement a, ®lters. The transfer functions FMa can, therefore, be
h and p. From these equations, it is seen that the aero- expressed as
dynamic coupling of the modes is induced by Mh …t†,
FMa …n†
La …t† and Da …t†:
Applying the Fourier transform to Eqs. (4a)±(4c) " #
2pC2 X n
4p2 ‡ i2pdk n …6†
and then comparing it with Scanlan's notion in terms ˆ rB U 2 2
C1 ‡ i ‡ Ck 2 2
of aerodynamic derivatives, the relationship between n kˆ3
d k n ‡ 4p2
transfer functions and aerodynamic derivatives are
obtained as: Comparing Eq. (6) with Eq. (5), the ¯utter derivatives
  can be obtained as:
FMa …o† ˆ rB 4 o2 A3 ‡ iA2 …5a† !
C1 Xn
Ck
  A3 ˆn 2
‡ 2 n2 ‡ 4p2
…7†
4p2 d
FMh …o† ˆ rB 3 o2 A4 ‡ iA1 …5b† kˆ3 k

  !
FLa …o† ˆ rB 3 o2 H 3 ‡ iH 2 …5c† n Xn
Ck dk n2
A2 ˆ C2 ‡ 2
…8†
2p d n2 ‡ 4p2
kˆ3 k
 
FLh …o† ˆ rB 2 o2 H 4 ‡ iH 2 …5d†
The unknown parameters Ck and dk can be obtained
  from the least square ®t of Eqs. (7) and (8). In this
FDa …o† ˆ rB 3 o P 3 ‡ iP 2
2 
…5e† paper, a total of six unknown parameters Ci …i ˆ 1, 6†
are used to compose the ®rst order linear ®lters. By
  taking the inverse Fourier transformation of the trans-
FDp …o† ˆ rB 2 o2 P 3 ‡ iP 2 …5f† fer functions, the time domain expression of impulse
 Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797 791

Fig. 3. Cable element at local coordinate system.

response functions can be obtained. Substituting these ements are connected by horizontal rigid arms.
impulse response functions into Eqs. (4a)±(4c) yields They have bending sti€ness in the vertical and lat-
( eral direction and are capable of resisting torsional
2 2 B stresses.
Ma …t† ˆ rB U C1 a…t† ‡ C2 a_ …t†
U d) Tower element: Each tower is represented by a
  three-dimensional framework fully ®xed against
…t
C5 U movement at its base. In this frame, every element
‡ C3 exp ÿ …t ÿ t† a_ …t† dt …9†
ÿ1 B is a beam element having both bending sti€ness and
) torsion sti€ness.
…t  
C6 U Usually bridge elements from the towers, deck, cables
‡ C4 exp ÿ …t ÿ t† a_ …t† dt
ÿ1 B and hangers can be represented by two types of ®nite
elements, i.e. spatial beam elements for towers and the
The other ®ve items including Mh …t†, La …t†, Lh …t†, Da …t† deck and cable elements for cables and hangers. In
and Dp …t† can be obtained similarly. It should be noted spite of the fact that the behavior of the material of
that every set of parameters Ci …i ˆ 1, 6† for Ma …t†, the structural elements in a long-span bridge is linear
Mh …t†, La …t†, Lh …t†, Da …t† and Dp …t† is di€erent. elastic, the overall load±displacement relationship for
the structure is nonlinear [10]. This overall nonlinear
behavior originates from (i) the in¯uence of cable sag
to its equivalent modulus of elasticity, (ii) the in¯uence
3. Structural idealization of initial stresses to structural sti€ness and (iii) the in-
¯uence of large displacements to structural sti€ness
Normally, torsional sti€ness of suspension bridges and loads.
with box girder cross sections is large and hence, the
decks can be idealised as three dimensional spine beam 3.1. Nonlinear sti€ness formulation of cable elements
structures as shown in Fig. 2. The major structural el-
ements of a suspension bridge are: Due to the very small bending sti€ness, cable el-
a) Cable element: The length of cable spanning ements can be regarded as elements capable of resisting
between hangers which is capable of resisting axial only axial force without any bending moment. In
tensile force only. three-dimensional analysis, cable elements are com-
b) Hanger element: The vertical member between a posed of two nodes that have a total of six degrees of
cable node and the deck which is capable of resist- freedom as shown in Fig. 3. For a cable element, the
ing tensile force only. displacement vector fxg can be written as fX g ˆ ‰ui , vi ,
c) Beam element: The length of the deck spanning wi , uj , vj , wj ŠT :
along the centerline of the bridge between a pair of The nonlinear behavior of cable elements results
nodes on the centerline. The hanger and deck el- from its sag phenomenon. The axial sti€ness of cable
792 Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797
Fig. 4. Beam element at local coordinate system.
elements is a€ected by the cable sag that is greatly
in¯uenced by the amount of tension in the cable.
When the cable tension increases, the sag decreases
and apparent axial sti€ness increases. Here, an equival-
ent straight chord member with an equivalent modulus
of elasticity, that combines the e€ects of both material
and geometric deformations, is used to account for
this variation in cable axial sti€ness [11]. The equival-
ent cable modulus of elasticity is given by
E bridges, large displacements will occur. This inter-
Eeq ˆ …10†
…rgl†2
1‡ E
12s3
in which Eeq is the equivalent modulus, E is the
Young's modulus of cable material, r is the density of
the cable, l is the horizontal projected length and s is
the tension stress of the cable. The total sti€ness
matrix of a cable element is, therefore, a combination
of the geometric sti€ness matrix and the elastic sti€-
ness matrix.
3.2. Nonlinear sti€ness formulation of beam elements
When assuming small deformations in any struc-
tural system, the axial force and ¯exural sti€nesses of
members in bending are usually considered to be
uncoupled. However, when deformations are no
longer small, there is an interaction between axial
and ¯exural deformations in such members under the
combined e€ect of the axial force and the bending
moment. As a result, the e€ective sti€ness of the
member decreases for a compressive axial force and
increases for a tensile force. Similarly, the presence of
bending moments will also a€ect the axial sti€ness of
the member. In traditional linear analysis, this inter-
action or coupling e€ect is negligible. However, for
¯exural structures such as long-span suspension
action can be signi®cant and should be considered in
any nonlinear analysis.
In three-dimensional analysis, a spatial beam el-
ement has twelve degrees of freedom as shown in
Fig. 4. For beam elements, the displacement vector
fX g can be written as
 
fX g ˆ ui , vi , wi , yxi , yyi , yzi , uj , vj , wj , yxj , yyj , yzj T
Analogous to that of cable elements, the sti€ness of a
beam element is composed of two parts: elastic sti€-
ness and geometric sti€ness. Based on the large displa-
cement theory, a geometric sti€ness matrix of beam
elements incorporating the contribution of the axial
force and bending moments has been derived by Pan
et al. [12].
 Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797 793

4. Equation of motion and method of solution where

The equations of motion in terms of a nodal displa- PMa, S ˆ rB 2 U 2 C1 …13a†

cement vector [U ] for a bridge structural system under
wind loads can be expressed in conventional matrix C2 B
notation as PMa, D ˆ rB 2 U 2 ˆ rB 3 UC2 …13b†
U
   
‰M Š U ‡ ‰C Š U_ ‡ ‰K Š‰U Š ˆ ‰P Š …11† (
2 2
where [M ] is a diagonal matrix containing the mass PMa ˆ rB U C3
and mass moment inertia of all elements lumped at the
nodes, [C ] is structural damping matrix taken as Ray- …t  
C5 U
leight's damping, [K ] is the structural sti€ness matrix exp ÿ …t ÿ t† a_ …t† dt ‡ C4 …13c†
ÿ1 B
including elastic sti€ness matrix and geometrical sti€-
…t   )
ness matrix, [P ] is the total wind load which includes
C6 U
state-steady wind load ‰Pst ], bu€eting wind load ‰Pbu Š exp ÿ …t ÿ t† a_ …t† dt
ÿ1 B
and self-excited wind load ‰Pse ]
If Eq. (9) is observed more closely, it is found that The other ®ve load items in Eqs. (4a)±(4c) can also be
the self-excited loads can be expressed in three parts: described analogously. Combining all aerodynamic
aerodynamic sti€ness part, aerodynamic damping part sti€ness parts and damping parts together, the aerody-
and motion history part, as follows: namic sti€ness and damping matrix in local coordinate
system can be set up. The aerodynamic sti€ness matrix
Ma …t† ˆ PMa, S a…t† ‡ PMa, D a_ …t† ‡ PMa …12† of an element can be written as

2 3
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
60 BLh, S 0 ÿBLa, S 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 07
6 7
60 0 BDp, S BDa, S 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 07
6 7
60 ÿBMh, S 0 BMa, S 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 07
6 7
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 07
6 7
L6
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 077
26
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 077
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 BLh, S 0 ÿBLa, S 0 07
6 7
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 BDp, S BDa, S 0 07
6 7
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 ÿBMh, S 0 BMa, S 0 07
6 7
40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 05
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

and the aerodynamic damping matrix,

2 3
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
60 BLh, D 0 ÿBLa, D 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 07
6 7
60 0 BDp, D BDa, D 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 07
6 7
60 ÿBMh, D 0 BMa, D 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 07
6 7
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 07
6 7
L6
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 077
26
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 077
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 BLh, D 0 ÿBLa, D 0 07
6 7
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 BDp, D BDa, D 0 07
6 7
60 0 0 0 0 0 0 ÿBMh, D 0 BMa, D 0 07
6 7
40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 05
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
794 Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797

Fig. 5. General layout of Tsing Ma Bridge (Extracted from Ref. [13]).

With respect to the motion history parts, it can be
seen that the items involve convolution integrals of vel-
ocities. These series integrals can be summarized as
… tj
 _
Ij ˆ exp … ÿ ci U=B†…tj ÿ t † d…t† dt …
ÿ1
It can been seen that for calculating their values, the
integral Ij must be evaluated at every time step tj
which is quite time consuming. Besides, the motion
history for all elements must be stored, thus occupying
a large memory of the computer. To tackle these di-
culties, a recursive algorithm for evaluating the integral
is derived as follow.
 
Ij ˆ exp … ÿ ci U=B†…tj ÿ tjÿ1 † Ijÿ1
  …15†
‡ exp … ÿ ci U=2B†…tj ÿ tjÿ1 † Ddjÿ1
From the above equation, it can be seen that only the
quantities involving Ijÿ1 and djÿ1 at time tjÿ1 are
needed to be stored for evaluating Ij :
14†
Summarily, the motion equation can be rewritten as
      
‰M Š U ‡ ‰C Š U_ ‡ ‰Ke Š ‡ Kg ‰U Š
 
ˆ ‰Pst Š ‡ ‰Pbu Š ‡ ‰Kse Š‰U Š ‡ ‰Cse Š U_ ‡ ‰Pseh Š …16†
where [Ke] is the elastic sti€ness matrix, [Kg] is the geo-
metrical sti€ness matrix, [Pst] is the steady-state wind
load vector, [Pbu] is the bu€eting load vector, [Kse] is
the aerodynamic sti€ness matrix due to self-excited

Table 1
The ®rst twelve vibration frequencies of Tsing Ma Bridge

Mode Frequency (Hz) Mode type Di€erence

BACSB Xu et al
1 0.067 0.068 Lateral bending of deck 1.47%
2 0.108 0.117 Vertical bending of deck 7.69%
3 0.138 0.137 Vertical bending of deck ÿ0.73%
4 0.151 0.158 Lateral bending of deck 4.43%
5 0.176 0.189 Vertical bending of deck 6.88%
6 0.212 0.210 Lateral move of main span cables ÿ0.95%
7 0.229 0.230 Lateral move of main span cables 0.43%
8 0.230 0.232 Lateral move of deck and cables 0.86%
9 0.234 0.240 Lateral move of deck and cables 2.50%
10 0.237 0.245 Vertical bending of deck 3.27%
11 0.239 0.271 Torsion of deck 11.81%
12 0.275 0.285 Lateral bending of deck 3.51%
 Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797
Fig. 6. Generated wind history for Tsing Ma bridge.
wind loads, [Cse] is the aerodynamic damping matrix
due to self-excited wind loads, [Pseh] is the self-excited
wind load related to motion history. In this paper, the
Newmark-b method is used to analyze the bu€eting
procedure of long span suspension bridges. In the
Newmark-b method the nodal acceleration between t
and t ‡ Dt is assumed as linear distribution:
   According to the site condition, the ¯uctuating wind
U z ˆ …1 ÿ g† U t ‡g U t‡Dt …17†
where fUg  t is the acceleration at time t, fUg
 t‡Dt is the
acceleration at time t ‡ Dt and fUg  z is a certain accel-
eration value between t and t ‡ Dt which must meet
the requirement of middle method fDUg _ ˆ fUg z Dt
Substituting Eq. (17) into motion equation (16), the
nodal displacement, velocity and acceleration at time
t ‡ Dt can be obtained as
   unknown aerodynamic coecients C1 to C6 are deter-
U t‡Dt ˆ U t ‡ DU t …18a†
  
U_ t‡Dt ˆ U_ t ‡ DU_ t …18b†
fU gt‡Dt ˆ fU gt ‡fDU gt …18c†
Hence, the whole procedure during a time period can
be obtained step by step. In the following study, g and
b have been taken as 0.5 and 0.25, respectively.
5. Case study Ð Bu€eting simulation of Tsing Ma
bridge
Tsing Ma Bridge (Fig. 5) [13], an integral com-
ponent of the Airport Core Projects in Hong Kong,
was opened to trac in 1997. This bridge has an over-
all length of 2200 m with a main suspended span of
795
Table 2
Aerodynamic coecients
C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6
M 0.26412 ÿ0.51993 0.16645 0.29121 13.43210 5.87260
I ÿ1.08827 ÿ2.79466 0.99064 1.06341 13.09312 229.358
1377 m. It is the longest suspension bridge carrying
both road and rail trac in the world.
The main support towers are concrete structures of
over 200 m height. The two main cables, each of
which was formed from nearly 40,000 individual steel
wires of 5 mm diameter, are approximately 1 m in di-
ameter. The typical steel box-girder deck is 41.0 m in
width, carrying a dual three-lane expressway together
with double rail tracks for the Airport Railway.
The whole bridge is modelled by a three dimensional
®nite-element model in this study. The ®rst twelve vi-
bration frequencies were calculated by using a self-
developed program BACSB (Bu€eting Analysis of
Cable-support Bridges). The results compare favour-
ably with those reported by Xu, et al. [14] as shown in
Table 1.
velocities along Tsing Ma Bridge with a mean wind
speed of U ˆ 60 m/s are simulated in Fig. 6.
In bu€eting analysis, the coupled terms in the self-
excited expression Eq. (4) have smaller e€ect on the
bu€eting response and are neglected. On the other
hand, due to the lack of wind tunnel data on lateral
aerodynamic derivative P i …i ˆ 1, 2, 3, 4†, only the ver-
tical bending and the torsional motions are taken into
account. Based on the wind tunnel data [13], the
mined and tabulated in Table 2.
In fact, the steady-state wind loads which contribute
only to the determination of the equilibrium position
of bridges, were found to be insigni®cant in bu€eting
responses. Hence, the whole analysis process can be
divided into two steps. The ®rst step is to establish a
Fig. 7. Vertical response at mid-span.
796 Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797
Fig. 8. Torsional response at mid-span.
static analysis to update the equilibrium positions of
the bridge and the second step is to develop a time±
domain analysis evaluating the bu€eting response
according to the updated equilibrium position in step
1.
Under steady-state wind loads with a mean wind
speed of U ˆ 60 m/s, the vertical and transverse displa-
cements as well as rotation of the bridge at mid-span
are 0.04, 2.4528 and 0.019 m, respectively.
The nonlinear bu€eting responses at mid-span and
quarter-span under the mean wind velocity of U ˆ 60
m/s are shown in Figs. 7±10. The horizontal reaction
of the main cable is shown in Fig. 11.
Comparing the responses of mid-span and quarter-
span, it can be seen that the peak vertical displacement
at quarter-span is much larger than that at mid-span
while the peak torsional response is much smaller. This
phenomenon is probably due to the fact that the ®rst
vibration mode has been excited which has the greatest
contribution to structural response. For Tsing Ma
Bridge, the ®rst vertical vibration mode shape is anti-
symmetrical while the ®rst rotational vibration mode
shape is symmetrical. The peak vertical responses,
therefore, occur at quarter-span rather than mid-span
while the peak rotational responses occur at mid-span.
The root mean squares of vertical responses at mid-
span and quarter-span are 0.085 and 0.127 m respect-
Fig. 9. Vertical response at quarter-span.
Fig. 10. Torsional response at quarter-span.
ively. These compare closely with the results derived
from using the other traditional bu€eting analysis
method which gives 0.094 and 0.133 m, respectively.
6. Concluding remarks
In this paper, a time-domain bu€eting method is
presented to analyse the bu€eting response of long
span suspension bridges based on Scanlan's bu€eting
theory. Tsing Ma suspension bridge has been chosen
as a case study example. In the bridge model, all geo-
metrical nonlinearity such as cable sag, axial force-
bending moment interaction in the bridge deck and
towers as well as changes in the bridge geometry due
to large displacement are considered. The compu-
tational results are therefore more accurate than those
obtained from the traditional spectrum method which
is limited in linearization scope. In addition, this
method can also reveal the response process of the
entire bridge which may be useful in other research
studies such as the structural health monitoring system
and the real-time trac control system. By comparing
the results with those obtained from using the spec-
trum method, the proposed simulation method is veri-
®ed.
Fig. 11. Horizontal reaction of main cable.
 Q. Ding, P.K.K. Lee / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 787±797
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