Ever since the wind induced collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (US) in November 1940, wind has been considered a crucial factor in bridge design. In order to avoid such catastrophes engineers have tried to increase the structure damping for critical frequencies and bending modes. One example of a passive solution that decreases the effect the wind forces exerts on the bridge is to streamline the bridge deck.
This project proposes an innovative wind-induced vibration attenuation strategy based on active control of the bridge’s aerodynamic profile. An array of adjustable winglets is installed along both edges of the girder and their angular position is controlled as a function of the current dynamic state of the structure and/or the local wind field measurement. The characteristics of the interaction between the wind field and the underlying structure (nonlinear, spatially heterogeneous, time-variant and noisy) with the additional degrees of freedom introduced by the flap system result in complex mathematical models and associated control strategies. In order to validadte the mathematical models set up to describe the system a physical active bridge section model has been installed in the EPFL windtunnel. Current project work focuses on the development of analytical and numerical models of the system, in parallell of investigating linear control laws for stabilizing the bridge deck using the flaps.
Active section model with control surfaces and section model in EPFL windtunnel.
Team
Maria Boberg (The Distributed Intelligent Systems and Algorithms Laboratory, DISAL)
Dr. Glauco Feltrin (Structural Engineering Research Laboratory, EMPA)
Sponsors
Videos
Embed of video is only possible from Mediaspace, Vimeo or Youtube
Embed of video is only possible from Mediaspace, Vimeo or Youtube
Related Student Projects
DISAL-SP71 Project T. Morais (Jan 2015)
DISAL-SP43 Project V. Mazoyer (June 2012)
DISAL-SU21 Project N. Valigi (September 2011)
DISAL-IP11 Project M. Boberg (May 2010)
DISAL-PP4 Project A. Lindner (August 2009)
DISAL-PP3 Project S. Sajja (August 2008)
If you are interested in doing a semester/master project related to this research please have a look at the current student project proposals:
(None available at the moment)
Publications
Please note that the publication lists from Infoscience integrated into the EPFL website, lab or people pages are frozen following the launch of the new version of platform. The owners of these pages are invited to recreate their publication list from Infoscience. For any assistance, please consult the Infoscience help or contact support.