CHAPTER 3

ECONOMY
3.1 GENERAL Economy is an important parameter to determine which type of bride structure is to be adopted for a given site condition. Relative costs of bridges depend on the number and length of spans and number of piers that affect the method construction. Studies of comparative costs of cable stayed bridges and other types of bridges are few; consequently, a designer should perform a detailed investigation of economics of the total structure including cost involving erection until sufficient data is available to make general decision quickly. Here some works on economic aspects of cable stayed bridges have been discussed. 3.2 REVIEW ON ECONOMICS OF CABLE STAYED BRIDGES In his survey of the bridges in Germany (1966), Thul (Ref. 2) has compared the center span length to the total length of the bridge for three-span continuous girder bridges, cable- stayed bridges, and suspension bridges. His investigation shows that the cable stayed bridge fills the void left by the continuous girder and suspension bridges in the range of 210 m (700 ft) to 300 m (1000 ft), with a corresponding center span to total length range of 50 to 60%. In his comparative study, Thul has shown that the cable-stayed concept can be economical for bridges with intermediate spans. However, with greater experience in design and construction, the application of longer main spans of cable-stayed bridges has increased. In the economical study on Canadian bridges (1969), Er. P.R. Tailor (Ref. 2) has concluded that for Canada highways cable stayed bridges with center span ranging from 210 m (700 ft) to 240 m (800 ft) are 5 to 10% more economical than other types of comparable bridges. When Thul wrote: It is considered highly unlikely or unrealistic to build bridges with very long spans using cable-stayed construction. Such span lengths will be reserved for suspension bridges because there are considerable difficulties in construction of cable-stayed bridges, he apparently did not foresee the effects of 16

improved technology and modern techniques of erection and construction, as perceived by Leonhardt. Leonhardt, 1970, (Ref. 2) concluded that cable-stayed bridges are particularly suited for spans in excess of 600 m (2000 ft) and may even be constructed with spans of more than 1500 m (5000 ft). In their study (1998), M. Nagai, X. Xie, H. Yamaguchi and Y. Fujino (Ref. 9) have presented a steel volume of a 1400-meter cable-stayed bridge model and discussed economy of the cable-stayed bridges with a span exceeding 1000 meters. The employed girder for the cable-stayed bridge has the span/depth ratio of 400 and the span/width ratio of 56, respectively. These values are higher than those of conventional cable-stayed bridges. The safety against static and dynamic instabilities of this model is examined by elasto-plastic finite displacement analysis under in-plane load, finite displacement analysis which takes displacement-dependent wind load into account and flutter analysis based on modal coordinate. From this study, it is shown that the cable-stayed system with a span up to 1600 meters is expected to be an economical alternative.

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