Investigation of wind loads on the Osmangazi Bridge with numerical modeling

Wind loads are crucial dynamic load for various structures. it is a unique engineering problem particularly because it requires the combined expertise of transportation, structure and fluid mechanics engineers. with the advancing techniques and technologies, also to answer the increasing demand, the design of bridges and bridge-ways tends to move towards wider structures with longer spans. typically, standards and widn tunnel tests are used to evaluate the design of structures with such characteristics aerodynamically. however, the limitations and disadvantages of these methods make numerical modeling efforts more important. the developed finite element methods, applications of successful boundary conditions and tubulence models together with high performance computing power makes is possible to analyze structures with various geometries with computational fluid dynamics method. in this study, anerodynamic analysis of the osmangazi bridge deck slab under a number of wind speeds and turbulence models were performed numerically. the wind loads acting on the bridge were evaluated as the aerodynamic loads. the results show that the deck slab cross section is well streamlined and the wind resistance of the structure is quite low.