STUDY ON FREE VIBRATION OF CURVED GIRDER BRIDGES

The studies on free vibration of a curved girder bridge are much complicated because the bending vibrations in orthogonal directions are generally coupled with the torsional one. The object of this paper is to present the fundamental equation for a freely vibrating curved girder bridge with an unsymmetrical cross-section and to obtain an approximate solution of the frequency equation. From these results, the practical formulae for determining the natural frequencies are proposed. Furthermore, the validity of this theory is verified by comparison with the results obtained from the experimental studies.