Probabilistic Criteria for Assessment of Aerodynamic Instability of Long-Span Bridges

This paper discusses how bridge structures are becoming lighter and more flexible with the rapid increase in bridge span length. This has resulted in an increasing importance in the aerodynamic study and design related to wind actions, in particular aerodynamic instability. The paper shows how the deterministic approach for the evaluation of aerodynamic instability for long-span bridges has had a long history since the collapse of the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940. In this paper, the probabilistic analysis model formulated by four independent random variables was adopted to carry out the probabilistic reassessment and calibration for flutter instability of ten cable-supported bridges including six cable-stayed bridges and four suspension bridges in China.