Abstract
Due to high strength- and stiffness-to-weight ratios, good durability performance in a variety of environments and quick installation, fibre reinforced polymers have increasingly been utilised for construction of highway and pedestrian bridges. Their relatively low mass and stiffness make these bridges potentially susceptible to vibration serviceability problems, which are increasingly governing the design. Currently, a lack of experimental data on the dynamic characteristics of polymeric composite structures is hindering their wider application and the development of design guidance. To fully exploit the benefits of using these structural materials in bridge engineering requires a better understanding of their dynamic behaviour. The aim of this paper is to utilise ambient vibration measurements to experimentally identify the dynamic characteristics (i.e., natural frequency, damping ratio and mode shape) of a glass fibre reinforced polymer deck suspension footbridge in the UK. It is found that the Wilcott footbridge possesses a relatively high density of vibration modes in the low frequency range up to 5 Hz and has damping ratios of most of these modes >1%.
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Acknowledgements
This research work was supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant number EP/M021505/1: Characterising dynamic performance of fibre reinforced polymer structures for resilience and sustainability].
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Wei, X., Russell, J., Živanović, S., Mottram, J.T. (2017). Experimental Investigation of the Dynamic Characteristics of a Glass-FRP Suspension Footbridge. In: Caicedo, J., Pakzad, S. (eds) Dynamics of Civil Structures, Volume 2 . Conference Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Mechanics Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54777-0_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54777-0_5
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