Pressure Distribution and Global Forces on a Bridge Deck Section: Experimental and CFD Analysis of Static Aerodynamic Forces

Abstract

Two different experimental approaches for the evaluation of a bridge deck’s stationary aerodynamic forces are studied in this paper: both wind tunnel measurement of global force and pressure distribution are evaluated on deck sectional models. Advantages and drawbacks of these different approaches are discussed using the results obtained on a simple deck section, specifically chosen to compare the selected methods. Two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have been performed to provide an insight into the differences of the aerodynamic forces measured with the two methods. Specifically, the effect of shear stresses, measurement discretization, and axial correlation of pressures are addressed. In CFD analysis, several turbulence models are tested and discussed using Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations.