FE Model of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Suspension Bridge Using Thin Shell Finite Elements

This paper presents the results of an eigenvalue analysis of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge. A high-resolution finite element model was created directly from the available design documents. All physical properties of the structural components were included in detail, so no calibration to the measured data was necessary. The deck and towers were modeled with shell elements. A nonlinear static analysis was performed before the eigenvalue calculation. The calculated natural frequencies and corresponding mode shapes showed good agreement with the available measured ambient vibration data. The calculation of the effective modal mass showed that nine modes had single contributions higher than 5 % of the total mass. They were in a frequency range up to 1.2 Hz. The comparison of the results for the torsional modes especially demonstrated the advantage of using thin shell finite elements over the beam modeling approach.