San Francisco Bay Bridge CFD Modeling

Location: San Francisco, California
Date Completed: 2009

Project Scope

Venture Engineering & Construction’s Las Vegas Office (formerly Loftus Associates West, LLC) was contracted to provide a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Model for the welding processes for the Orthotropic Box Girders (OBGs) of the new Cable Stay Bridge from Treasure Island in the Bay Area to Oakland, CA. As these OBGs are confined spaces once they are positioned for welding, CFD Models were utilized to designed a suitable captive exhaust system to assure a safe working environment per CalOSHA. The welding process was crucial to assure the shield gas of the weld position would not be jeopardized, so captive hoods were designed and simulated to assure the continuous collection of weld gasses. CFD Modeling provided color dynamic models that were used to show and prove the exhaust captive system worked.

Deliverables included a complete CFD Model Analysis and simulations for the OBGs and the proposed Tower Structure to design the captive hoods welding exhaust system including ducted systems for both
exhaust and make-up air.

Design Basis

Star CCM Plus Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling Software.