Monte Carlo simulation for the response analysis of long-span suspended cables under wind loads

This paper presents a time-domain approach for analyzing nonlinear random vibrations of long-span suspended cables under transversal wind. A consistent continuous model of the cable, fully accounting for geometrical nonlinearities inherent in cable behavior, is adopted. The effects of spatial correlation are properly included by modeling wind velocity fluctuation as a random function of time and of a single spatial variable ranging over cable span, namely as a one-variate bi-dimensional (1V-2D) random field. Within the context of a Galerkin’s discretization of the equations governing cable motion, a very efficient Monte Carlo-based technique for second-order analysis of the response is proposed. This procedure starts by generating sample functions of the generalized aerodynamic loads by using the spectral decomposition of the cross-power spectral density function of wind turbulence field. Relying on the physical meaning of both the spectral properties of wind velocity fluctuation and the mode shapes of the vibrating cable, the computational efficiency is greatly enhanced by applying a truncation procedure according to which just the first few significant loading and structural modal contributions are retained.