Physics-statistics-based hybrid simulation scheme of coupled nonstationary hurricane wind and wave fields for long-span floating bridges

Abstract Long-span bridges with floating towers have recently drawn great attention from the engineering community. Due to their sensitivity to the aerodynamic and hydrodynamic loads during extreme storms, accurate and efficient simulation tools for hurricane winds and waves are needed for improved understanding of the complex dynamics of the fully coupled wind–wave–structure interaction system. Conventional simulation schemes usually generate winds and waves separately, and hence cannot capture the intense wind–wave interactions under hurricanes. In this study, a physics-statistics-based hybrid simulation scheme of nonstationary hurricane wind and wave fields is presented, where the winds and waves are coupled in both large and small scales. To simulate the large-scale winds and waves, a height-resolving hurricane wind model is coupled with a parametric hurricane wave model through a dependence between sea surface roughness and surface wind speed. In the small-scale simulations, the nonstationary wind fluctuations are statistically obtained by a Hilbert-wavelet-based scheme in which the target parameters (e.g. fluctuation intensity) are estimated based on the local sea state, while the nonstationary sea surface elevations are physically acquired by solving the governing equation of the nonlinear wave evolution under the action of winds. The simulation fidelity of the proposed physics-statistics-based hybrid scheme is demonstrated by generating the coupled nonstationary wind and wave fields approaching to a hypothetical long-span bridge with floating towers under a hurricane event.