Performance of suspension bridge hangers exposed to hazardous material fires considering wind effects

Abstract

Traffic accidents involving vehicles transporting hazardous materials (HazMat) can cause serious fire hazards, threatening the safety of bridge infrastructure as well as nearby traffic. For critical bridges such as long-span cable-stayed and suspension bridges, fire hazards can not only cause severe structural damage, but also serious traffic disruption, congestion, and accidents. Unlike short-span bridges, long-span cable-supported bridges often experience considerable wind effects at the height of the bridge deck which can significantly influence fire hazards. As the critical components of cable-supported bridges, the failure of cables or hangers due to fire may trigger progressive failure of the bridge structure. Existing studies on fire simulation of long-span bridges, however, are very limited. Typical fire hazard scenarios from vehicles transporting hazardous material (HazMat) are simulated with fire dynamics simulation (FDS) software on a suspension bridge with a focus on the threats to hangers. To more realistically consider the potential fire hazards to bridge hangers of long-span bridges, appropriate fuel size, transverse offset distance, and wind effects are considered. The study of a baseline scenario is carried out first and followed by parametric studies to investigate the effects of wind speeds, longitudinal offsets, hazardous material types and spill sizes on the fire simulation results.

Funding

National Science Foundation(CMMI-1335571)