To study the motion responses and connector forces of a new type of floating bridge, and to explore the difference of the motion responses and connector forces of the floating bridge under different wave conditions. The three-dimensional hydroelasticity theory is used to analyze the hydroelastic responses of the floating bridge. The principal coordinate responses of the floating bridges under different wave directions and different wavelengths are obtained, and the motion responses at the center of gravity of the floating bridge are also obtained. The results show that the principal coordinate responses of rigid modes calculated by the present method are consistent with the results calculated by AQWA, and the motion responses of the pontoons calculated by the present method are in good agreement with the model test results. The connector forces between the modules of the floating bridge are calculated by the modal superimposing method, and then the short-term predicted values of the connector loads are obtained under different sea conditions. Finally, several conclusions are given.
Floating bridges are widely used in the development and construction of coastal mudflats and offshore islands, and play an important role in emergency support and transportation. A floating bridge is usually composed of multiple modules connected by articulations, and the connectors are one of the most critical components of a floating bridge and an important factor affecting its adaptability to sea conditions. Therefore, the calculation and analysis of connector loads are crucial.
Numerical simulation and physical model tests are the two most important methods to study the hydrodynamic or hydroelastic performances of the floating bridge (Fu et al., 2005; Sun et al., 2018; Viuff et al., 2019; Huang et al, 2022). For long pontoon bridges reaching hundreds of meters or even several kilometers, the influence of structural elastic deformation on the dynamic characteristics of the pontoon bridge needs to be considered in the numerical calculation. Based on the three-dimensional (3-D) hydroelasticity theory, the effects of the nonlinear properties of connectors and moving loads effects (Fu et al., 2005; Fu & Cui, 2012) and inhomogeneous wave load on the long floating bridge were investigated, and the numerical results were verified by using the results of the tests. The Finite element method (FEM) is one of the most mature methods for structure strength assessment, and the linear potential theory (LPT) is often used to solve the hydrodynamic properties of the floating body. So the combination of FEM and LPT is used to calculate the hydroelastic characteristics of the floating bodies (Hartweg and Heckmann, 2016; Kvåle et al., 2016), in which the assumption of the rigid body was taken generally. Many researchers (Qiu, 2007; Huang et al., 2021) calculated the hydroelastic responses of floating bridges by using the elastic beam theory and LPT. There is also some software available to analyze the hydrodynamic or hydroelastic responses of floating bridges (Sha et al., 2018; Dai et al., 2021; Miao et al., 2021).
