Non-Stationary Turbulent Wind Field Simulation of Long-Span Bridges Using the Updated Non-Negative Matrix Factorization-Based Spectral Representation Method

Numerical simulation of the turbulent wind field on long-span bridges is an important task in structural buffeting analysis when it comes to the system non-linearity. As for non-stationary extreme wind events, some efforts have been paid to update the classic spectral representation method (SRM) and the fast Fourier transform (FFT) has been introduced to improve the computational efficiency. Here, the non-negative matrix factorization-based FFT-aided SRM has been updated to generate not only the horizontal non-stationary turbulent wind field, but also the vertical one. Specifically, the evolutionary power spectral density (EPSD) is estimated to characterize the non-stationary feature of the field-measured wind data during Typhoon Wipha at the Runyang Suspension Bridge (RSB) site. The coherence function considering the phase angles is utilized to generate the turbulent wind fields for towers. The simulation accuracy is validated by comparing the simulated and target auto-/cross-correlation functions. Results show that the updated method performs well in generating the non-stationary turbulent wind field. The obtained wind fields will provide the research basis for analyzing the non-stationary buffeting behavior of the RSB and other wind-sensitive structures in adjacent regions.