As the backbone of the modern society, a long-span bridge usually experience strong dynamic vibrations under both wind and busy traffic loadings, which may threaten the serviceability and even the overall safety of the bridge through complicated dynamic interactions. However, just like traditional long-span bridge aerodynamic analyses, the existent studies of the long-span bridge control under wind did not consider the dynamic impacts from moving vehicles at the same time. Besides, the strong crosswind on the bridge deck also endangers the safety of moving trucks and the strong interactions within the coupled system of bridge-vehicle-wind usually will further worsen the situation. It is thus to firstly develop the interactive analytical dynamic equations for the long-span bridge and moving vehicles attached with tuned mass dampers under windy conditions. The proposed analytical model provides an important framework for many further control studies of long-span bridges in a more realistic manner through considering the impacts from vehicles with various passive, semi-active or active damper systems. Then the performance of the bridge-traffic system with tuned mass dampers under windy conditions is parametrically studied for several different schemes: TMDs are installed on the bridge, on the truck and on both. Some observations of the coupled control system are discussed and the feasibility of developing a temporary control measure to protect unloaded or partially-loaded high-sided trucks from rollover accidents in windy conditions is investigated.
Abstract