All attempts of aeroelastic explanations for the torsional instability of suspension bridges have been somehow criticised and none of them is unanimously accepted by the scientific community. We suggest a new nonlinear model for a suspension bridge and we perform numerical experiments with the parameters corresponding to the collapsed Tacoma Nar- rows Bridge. We show that the thresholds of instability are in line with those observed the day of the collapse. Our analysis enables us to give a new explanation for the torsional instability, only based on the nonlinear behavior of the structure.

Torsional instability in suspension bridges: The Tacoma Narrows Bridge case

ARIOLI, GIANNI;GAZZOLA, FILIPPO
2016-01-01

Abstract

All attempts of aeroelastic explanations for the torsional instability of suspension bridges have been somehow criticised and none of them is unanimously accepted by the scientific community. We suggest a new nonlinear model for a suspension bridge and we perform numerical experiments with the parameters corresponding to the collapsed Tacoma Nar- rows Bridge. We show that the thresholds of instability are in line with those observed the day of the collapse. Our analysis enables us to give a new explanation for the torsional instability, only based on the nonlinear behavior of the structure.
2016
Hill equation; Modal analysis; Suspension bridges; Torsional instability; Modeling and Simulation; Numerical Analysis; Applied Mathematics
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/995126
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