Analysis of suspension bridges in construction and completed status considering the pylon saddles

Abstract

A nonlinear analysis approach is newly proposed to obtain the configurations of suspension bridges in both construction and completed status, and the effects of the pylon saddles are considered in this algorithm. With the expression determining the position of the cable’s attachment point on the saddle, the approach can automatically take the saddle into account in the analysis process. In order to verify the accuracy, the analytical methods, which respectively describing the whole bridge completed status and the main cable completed status, are established to obtain the comparative results. Finally, a bridge case is adopted to illustrate the application of the proposed approach. The comparative analysis shows that the proposed algorithm and analytical method can obtain the results with high consistence. What is more, the results indicate that the saddles can significantly change the effective length of the cable, which can have a non-negligible effect on the bridge’s configuration. With the proposed scheme, the accuracy of the calculated parameters can be further improved for the suspension bridge.

Keywords:

• Suspension bridge
• nonlinear analysis
• pylon saddle
• unstrained length
• catenary

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of People’s Republic of China (Grant 51678148). The financial supports are gratefully acknowledged.