Abstract Summary
Hazardous wind conditions can lead to vital safety problems for long-span bridges, either dynamic oscillations or overturning of high sided vehicles. Engineers need to understand the local wind effect to ensure the safety and acceptable performance of infrastructures. Traditionally, aerodynamic studies were carried out in wind tunnel facilities, however the opportunities of using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling for wind assessments in place of wind tunnel tests are significant. To data, few studies of three-dimensional (3D) aerodynamic simulations of bridges with bridge tower and wind shields on them exist. Moreover, most of the existing studies are aimed at validation with wind tunnel tests and do not investigate full-scale effects. To the best of authors’ knowledge, there have not been any full-scale simulations with validation with field monitoring data done to date regarding to bridge aerodynamics. In this study, full-scale 3D CFD models are developed in OpenFOAM using the k-ω-SST turbulence model for the world longest three-tower cable-stayed bridge: the Queensferry Crossing Bridge, which located at Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. The 3D CFD model contains details such as wind shields. Atmospheric boundary layer inflows were created based on wind profiles provided by a full-scale Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The CFD predictions of the wind condition are compared with on-site data, which was provided by Transport Scotland, United Kingdom. The aerodynamic force conditions of the sample vehicle on the bridge are subsequently determined and analysed.
