Discovering time-varying aerodynamics of a prototype bridge by sparse identification of nonlinear dynamical systems

Vortex-induced vibrations (VIVs) have been observed on a long-span suspension bridge. The nonstationary wind in the field characterized by the time-varying mean wind speed is likely to lead to time-varying aerodynamics of the wind-bridge system during VIVs, which is different from VIVs induced by stationary or even steady wind in wind tunnels. In this paper, data-driven methods are proposed to reveal the time-varying aerodynamics of the wind-bridge system during VIV events based on field measurements on a long-span suspension bridge. First, a variant of the sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics algorithm is proposed to identify parsimonious, time-varying aerodynamical systems that capture VIV events of the bridge. Thus we are able to posit new, data-driven, and interpretable models highlighting the aeroelastic interactions between the wind and bridge. Second, a density-based clustering algorithm is applied to discovering the potential modes of dynamics during VIV events. As a result, the time-dependent model is obtained to reveal the evolution of the aerodynamics of the wind-bridge system over time during an entire VIV event. It is found that the level of self-excited effects of the wind-bridge system is significantly time varying with the real-time wind speed and bridge motion state. The simulations of VIVs by the obtained time-dependent models show high accuracies of the models with an averaged normalized mean-square error of 0.0023. The clustering of obtained models shows underlying distinct dynamical regimes of the wind-bridge system, which are distinguished by the level of self-excited effects.