Toward an improvement in the identification of bridge deck flutter derivatives

This paper presents a short review of the state-of-the-art methods to identify bridge deck flutter derivatives and proposes a new algorithm to simultaneously extract the aeroelastic coefficients from free-vibration section-model tests, which is based on the improvement of the unifying least-squares (ULS) method and is therefore called modified unifying least-squares method. The advantages with respect to ULS are the faster and better convergence and the improvement in accuracy due to the introduction of weighting factors in the unifying error function. The method has been validated through numerically simulated noisy signals and experimental heaving and pitching time histories for two different bridge deck cross sections: a single-box and a multiple-box girder section model. The analysis of the artificial signals shows that a few system parameters are very difficult to be identified due to the fact that the problem is strongly ill-conditioned. Nevertheless, all the diagonal and off-diagonal components of the stiffness and damping matrices which significantly contribute to the output of the system are correctly estimated. The improvement with respect to other methods is extensively discussed. For the wind-tunnel test cases the accuracy of the identification procedure is evaluated through the comparison between measured signals and those simulated through the estimated mechanical and aerodynamic system parameters with very satisfactory results. With respect to many previous attempts of validation, this approach clearly shows the degree of accuracy that can be expected from the identification algorithm. Finally, for the considered test cases the linear model which stands behind the method seems to be an acceptable approximation of the physics of the phenomenon.