Wind engineering associate professor's paper featured in ASCE Journal

By Peter Murphy

The paper, Real-Time Aerodynamics Hybrid Simulation: A Novel Wind-Tunnel Model for Flexible Bridges, discusses a new type of simulation to enhance the examination of wind-induced effects on bridges.

Conventional wind tunnel testing has well-known limitations, according to Wu. Different structural pieces are difficult to simulate in the current models, and only few modes can be accurately simulated in full-bridge aeroelastic models. Wu’s simulation is a different version of the real-time hybrid simulation techniques (RTHS) that are typically used in earthquake engineering.

Wu wrote the paper with coauthors Shaopeng Li, a graduate student in the Department and associate professor Mettupalayam Sivaselvan.

“The time history of wind-induced bridge responses is obtained at the end of the proposed real-time aerodynamics hybrid simulation,” Wu says, “the feasibility of the RTAHS methodology is demonstrated by a numerical example involving both linear and nonlinear wind-induced forces on the bridge deck.”

The Journal of Engineering Mechanics in one of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)’ journals, and covers research and activity in the field of applied mechanics as it relates to civil engineering. Papers featured in the Journal typically describe new analytical models, numerical methods and experimental methods and results.

Wu joined UB in 2014 after completing his PhD at the University of Notre Dame. His research interests include nonlinear and transient aerodynamics, nonstationary winds, fluid-structure interaction, reduced-order modeling, hurricane hazard modeling, climate change and other topics.