Wind field reconstruction and optimal anemometer placement for long span bridges

For long span bridges located in coastal areas, a limited number of anemometers are often installed on the bridge to monitor wind conditions and wind effects. To make best use of wind information from limited anemometers, this paper proposes a wind field reconstruction method, based on wind conditional simulation method with the iteration of coherence function along the bridge deck, for providing a complete wind field for the bridge. In terms of wind field reconstruction method, this paper further investigates the optimal anemometer placement for obtaining the best wind field reconstruction with the least number of anemometers. The proposed two methods are finally applied to a real long suspension bridge equipped with three anemometers on one side of the bridge to demonstrate the feasibility and accuracy of the methods. The results show that the reconstructed wind field not only matches with the measured wind speed histories and spectrums but also provides the best wind coherence function, wind speed histories, and wind spectrums for the entire bridge deck. The results also show that with the limited number of anemometers installed at appropriate positions relative to the bridge deck, the wind field can be reconstructed satisfactorily.