Digital twin-empowered investigation on limit cycle flutter of a double-girder bridge section

Abstract

The investigation of limit cycle flutter (LCF) in a bridge section is currently conducted through the utilization of both wind tunnel testing and numerical simulation techniques, specifically during the design stage of a bridge. In consideration of the drawbacks and uncertainties to both wind tunnel testing and numerical simulations, this paper presents a digital twin-empowered investigation on LCF of a double-girder bridge section. While the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation for the bridge section as a fluid-structure coupling model is viewed as a virtual entity, the wind tunnel testing of the bridge section is considered a physical entity. Based on the multivariate polynomial regression iterative optimization algorithm, the data collected from the physical entity is mingled with the virtual entity to achieve a digital twin of LCF at a given wind velocity. Subsequently, the Kriging interpolation is employed for the purpose of establishing a digital twin system, which is designed to simulate and predict LCF in the bridge section under conditions of wind velocity that have not been tested in the wind tunnel testing or exceed the measurement capacity of wind tunnel test. The findings of this research demonstrate that a digital twin-empowered investigation is feasible and greatly enhances the prediction quality and capacity of LCF of the double-girder bridge section.