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Herein, a study on the hydrodynamic modelling of pontoon bridges is presented, with the Bergsøysund Bridge as a representative example. The model relies on the finite element method and linearized potential theory. The primary emphasis is placed on the stochastic response analysis within the framework of the power spectral density method. The quadratic eigenvalue problem is solved using a state-space representation and an iterative algorithm. The contribution of the fluid-structure interaction to the overall modal damping is investigated. Response effects due to changes in the sea state are studied. A frequency-independent approximation of the hydrodynamic coefficients is presented and discussed.

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Aeroelastic analysis is a major task in the design of long-span bridges, and recent developments in computer power and technology have made Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) an important supplement to wind tunnel experiments. In this paper, we employ the Finite Element Method (FEM) with an effective mesh-moving algorithm to simulate the forced-vibration experiments of bridge sectional models. We have augmented the formulation with weakly-enforced essential boundary conditions, and a numerical example illustrates how weak enforcement of the no-slip boundary condition gives a very accurate representation of the aeroelastic forces in the case of relatively coarse boundary layer mesh resolution. To demonstrate the accuracy of the method for industrial applications, the complete aerodynamic derivatives for lateral, vertical and pitching degrees-of-freedom are

This paper presents a new experimental setup for the aerodynamic section model testing of bridge decks. The rig is designed to move a section model in arbitrary motion in a wind tunnel to imitate the motions of such scaled real bridge motion, step motion or random motion histories to be close to white noise. The proposed setup enables the forces acting on the section model to be measured directly while considering motions that resemble actual bridge motion and still fully utilizing the benefits of the forced vibration testing technique. The excellent performance of the system and testing procedure is proved by performing state-of-the-art forced vibration tests to extract 18 flutter derivatives of the Hardanger Bridge cross-section. The new experimental setup is further used to simulate a three-degree-of-freedom dynamic system driven by white noise to investigate whether the estimates of the aerodynamic derivatives are sensitive to the motion considered. The experimental results demonstrate that the estimates of the aerodynamic derivatives are not sensitive to the motion considered; these results indicate that the principle of superposition is fully applicable for the cross section as long as the motions are within the range considered.