Experimental Determination of Aeroelastic Derivatives for a Small-Scale Bridge Deck

A heaving and pitching two degrees of freedom bridge-deck sectional model apparatus representative of a long-span bridge was designed, built, and tested in the wind tunnel to acquire measurement of aeroelastic derivatives. The main objective of this study was the experimental validation of the procedure to compute the aeroelastic derivatives based on the Iterative Least Square Method identification technique. A good correspondence was found between the flutter derivatives experimentally extracted from the model, and the corresponding reference values, which have been analytically derived from the Theodorsen's theory. A simulation model in MATLAB/Simulink® environment, useful for future control laws applications, was also developed and validated by real experimental results.