THE PONT DE NORMANDIE DURING CONSTRUCTION, AEROELASTIC MODELING OF BEHAVIOR

This paper discusses the wind tunnel tests conducted for the construct ion of the main span of the Pont de Normandie, presently being erected in France, to be the world's longest cable-stayed bridge. The paper d escribes the wind tunnel investigations conducted in the ''Martin Jens en'' very large wind tunnel at the Danish Maritime Institute (DMI) on a 1:150 scale aeroelastic model of the structure in its most vulnerabl e stage, when two unprecedented 420 m cantilevers will span the Seine, just prior to the erection of the last steel box girder joining the t wo halves of the bridge. This paper gives a detailed description of th e aeroelastic model and presents a summary of the main findings. A com panion paper [J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 65 (1996) 189-201] compares t he measured responses to analytical predictions using state-of-the-art prediction methods.