The foundation and the future of wind engineering of long span bridges—the contributions of Alan Davenport

The pioneering work of Alan Davenport in the area of wind effects on long span bridges is reviewed, beginning with his Ph.D. research at Bristol University in the UK. Alanʹs resurrection of statistical concepts developed by Taylor and Von Kármán, describing the properties of the turbulent wind and the stochastic approach to the response of structures was key to his future work and to those researchers that followed. Simplification of the suspension bridge to a “line-like” structure permitted the focusing on fundamental areas of the response such as the resonant and quasi-steady components. This marriage between a sound theoretical understanding of the physical processes of the load and that of the response is characteristic of Alanʹs work and the experimental approaches that have been developed in the intervening time. His innovations with experimental techniques involving Section Models, Full Aeroelastic Models and his development of the Taut Strip Model approach are discussed. The incorporation of experimental results from these different approaches into the design methodology and codification is also outlined. Current research by Alan and his colleagues on the pressure fields on bridge decks promises to provide new insights into the effects of vortex shedding and flutter as well as turbulent buffeting. Some areas of future research are suggested with Alanʹs vision of the rational treatment of the problems associated with the wind engineering of long span bridges.