Geometrically nonlinear analysis of cable-stayed bridges subject to wind excitations

[[abstract]]The effects of geometric nonlinearities on the buffeting response of cable‐stayed bridges are investigated in this paper. To incorporate nonlinear effects into this analysis, an autoregressive (AR) approach is used to generate real‐time wind loads based on target frequency spectra. Beam‐column elements and cable elements are used to model the cable‐stayed bridge. The P‐? effects of decks and towers and the sag effects of inclined cables are considered. The Kao Ping Hsi cable‐stayed bridge is chosen as the numerical example, not only to demonstrate the validity and applicability of this time domain analysis, but also, to investigate nonlinear effects on buffeting response. Comparisons between the traditional frequency domain and the present time domain approaches are made through this analysis. It is found that the results calculated from the time domain approach agree well with those from the frequency domain as the geometric nonlinearities are ignored in the dynamic analysis. Comparisons of the results between nonlinear and linear buffeting analyses indicate that geometric nonlinearities become significant as the approaching wind velocity increases.[[booktype]]紙