Aerostatic stability analysis of suspension bridges under parametric uncertainty

This paper presents a new method (series method) for the deterministic aerostatic stability analysis of suspension bridges. The geometric nonlinearity in the deflection theory and the three components of displacement-dependent wind loads are taken into account in the method. The accuracy and efficiency of the method are verified through the comparisons with existing nonlinear and linear methods. Second, an efficient and accurate algorithm is proposed to perform aerostatic stability analysis with parametric uncertainty. The proposed algorithm integrates the concepts of the direct Monte Carlo simulation and the series method. A numerical example is used to verify the proposed algorithm. Finally, a sensitivity analysis on the aerostatic stability with respect to changes in the system parameters is performed using response surface method (RSM). The results show that RSM is simple, practical and accurate.