JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

NONLINEAR AEROSTATIC ANALYSIS OF SELFANCHORED AND BI-STAYED CABLE-STAYED BRIDGES USING SAP: 2000
1

N D SHAH, 2 DR. J A DESAI

Head, Department of Civil Engineering, Education Campus,Chana, CHARUSAT University, Changa -388 421, Dist: Anand, India. 2 Professor & Head, Department of Applied Mechanics, SV National Institute of Technology, Surat -395 007, India nirajshah.cv@ecchanga.ac.in, jad@amd.svnit.ac.in

ABSTRACT : For bridging the long and unsupported spans, the cable-supported bridges present the most elegant and efficient structural solution. And hence, they are increasingly being constructed all over the world. As the span of the cable-stayed bridge increases, the nonlinearities also go on increasing. These nonlinearities are due to sag in the cable, axial force-bending moment interaction in the girder and tower and due to large deformations of the overall structure. Further, the nonlinearity magnifies with the influence of wind loading. The paper presents finite element approach for the geometric nonlinear aerostatic analysis of cable-stayed bridges with vehicular interaction. The concept of longer span is elaborated here with help of parametric study. Again the effect of anchoring top cables of cable stayed bride i.e. bi-stayed concept is also carried out. The results shows that the concept of spread pylon proved useful in reducing the cable tensile forces whereas the bistayed bridge concept is useful in reducing the forces in cable, girder and pylon. Keywords: Cable-stayed Bridges, Nonlinear, Aerostatic, Bi-stayed Bridge, Vehicular Loading 1. INTRODUCTION Achieving larger spans by inventing new bridge systems has always been a fascinating intellectual challenge. To increase the maximum span of cablestayed bridges, Uwe Starossek [6] has developed a modified statical system. The basic idea of this new concept is the use of pairs of inclined pylon legs that spread out longitudinally from the foundation base or from the girder level. The system geometry entails steeper and shorter cables. The horizontal cable force component introduced into the deck is smaller. Additionally, cable sag is reduced. However, there is a need to study the behaviour of this bridge system under vehicular and wind loaning to compare its stiffness with the bridge system having conventional pylons. As opposed to the classical suspension bridge, the cable-stays are directly connected to the bridge deck resulting in a much stiffer structure. A large number of closely spaced cable-stays support the bridge deck throughout its length, reducing the required depth and bending stiffness of the longitudinal girder to a minimum, thereby allowing the construction of relatively longer spans. The structural action is simple in concept: the cable carries the deck loads to the towers and from there to the foundation. The primary forces in the structure are tension in the cable-stays and axial compression in the towers and deck; the effect of bending and shear is considered secondary. 2. FINITE ELEMENT FORMULATION Based on the finite element concept, a cable-stayed bridge can be considered as an assembly of a finite number of cable and beam-column (for girder and tower) elements. In this study some assumptions are made as follows. The material is homogeneous and isotropic. The stressstrain relationship of all material remains within the linear elastic range during the whole nonlinear response. The external loads are displacement independent. Large displacements and large rotations are allowed, but strains are small. All cables are fixed to the tower and to the girder at their joints of attachment. 2.1 STIFFNESS ELEMENTS In general, the relationship of element forces and element displacements of a finite element can be 0 expressed as: Sj = KEjkuk + Sj (1) Where Sj is the generalized element forces, S 0j, generalized initial element forces, uk, generalized element coordinates, KEjk, element stiffness matrix. In the following, the element properties of the cable and beam-column elements used in the study will be briefly summarized. 2.1.1. Cable element with sag The elastic cable is assumed to be perfectly flexible and possesses only tension stiffness; it is incapable of resisting compression, shear and bending forces. When the weight of the cable is neglected, the cable element can be considered as a straight

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member. But under action of its own dead load and axial tensile force, a cable supported at its end will sag into a catenary shape, as seen in Fig. 1. The axial stiffness of a cable will change with changing sag. When a straight cable element for a whole inclined cable stay is used in the analysis, the sag effect has to be taken into account. On the consideration of the sag nonlinearity in the inclined cable stays, it is convenient to use an equivalent straight cable element with an equivalent modulus of elasticity, which can well describe the catenary action of the cable. The concept of a cable equivalent modulus of elasticity was first introduced by Ernst [1]. If the change in tension in a cable during a load increment is not large, the axial stiffness of the cable will not change significantly and the equivalent modulus of elasticity of the cable can be considered constant during the load increment, and is given by E Eeq = (2) (wL)2 AE 1+ 3 12T in which Eeq, equivalent cable modulus of elasticity, E, effective cable material modulus of elasticity, A, cross sectional area, w, cable weight per unit length, L, horizontal projected length of the cable and T , tensile force in the cable. The cable equivalent modulus of elasticity combines both the effects of material and geometric deformation. The value of the equivalent modulus is dependent upon the weight and the tension in cable. Hence, the axial stiffness of the equivalent element combing cable sag and cable tension determined by the above equation is the same as the axial stiffness of the actual cable. < 0, i.e., when shortening occurs. If the cable sag effect is neglected, the stiffness matrix for a linear cable element becomes KEjk = [KE] = [EA/l], where Eeq is replaced by E. 2.1.2. Beam-column element Since a high pretension force exists in inclined cable stays, the towers and part of the girders are subjected to large compression; this means that the beam-column effect has to be taken into consideration for girders and towers of the cablestayed bridge. The beam-column element is straight and it has constant cross-section. The crosssectional area of the elements remains unchanged during deformation. For the beam-column element, the engineering beam theory is employed and no shear strain is considered. In a beam-column, lateral deflection and axial force are interrelated such that its bending stiffness depends on the element axial forces, and the presence of bending moments will affect the axial stiffness. The element bending stiffness decreases for an axial compressive force and increases for a tensile force. The beam-column effect can be evaluated by using the stability functions [2, 3]. The plane beamcolumn element shown in Fig. 2 is employed in this study. It has three element coordinates, two for end rotations, u1, u2 and one for the relative axial deformation u3=l, where l is the element axial elongation or shortening. The element force corresponding to uj is denoted by Sj, in which S1 and S2 are the end moments and S3 is the axial force.

Fig 2: Three DOF plane beam-column element Fig 1: Plane Cable Element with Sag When sag effect exists and the inclined cable stay is represented by a single equivalent straight cable element with one coordinate (relative axial deformation) u1 = l, as seen in Fig. 1, the stiffness matrix KEjk of the cable element has the value as follows: KEjk = [KE] = [Eeq A / l] for u1 > 0&[0] for u1 < 0 (3) where l is chord length of cable element. The cable stiffness vanishes and no element force exists for u1 When the beam-column effect has to be taken into consideration, the beam-column element stiffness matrix has the following form [2, 3]. 0 Cs Ct EI KEjk = [KE] = Ct Cs 0 (4) l 0 0 Rt (A / I) where E is modulus of elasticity, A, cross-sectional area, I, moment of inertia of the cross-sectional area and l, element length.

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3. GEOMETRIC NONLINEARITY Normally, an iterative procedure [5] is required to solve the nonlinear equilibrium problem. In this paper, the Newton-Raphson method is employed with the linear solution as a first approximation. For successive iterations, the actual strain and stress are determined by taking into account both the linear and appropriate nonlinear contributions of the previous approximation. The tangent stiffness matrix and the external and internal force vectors are formed by using the usual assembly procedure for the current structural configuration. The improved trial solution for the (i +1)th iteration is obtained as: qi+1 = qi + q i+1 (5) 4. AEROSTATIC LOAD Under the wind effect, the bridge is subjected to, and acts to resist drag force, lift force and pitching moment. Consider a section of bridge deck in a smooth flow, as shown in Fig. 3. Assuming that under the effect of the mean wind velocity V with the angle of incidence , the torsional 0 displacement of deck is . Then the effective wind angle of attack is = 0 + . The components of wind forces per unit span acting on the deformed deck can be written in wind axes as: 1 Drag Force: Fy ( ) = VZ2CY ( ) D (6) 2 1 Lift Force: Fz ( ) = VZ2Cz ( ) B (7) 2 1 Pitching Moment: M ( ) = VZ2CM ( ) B2 (8) 2 Where, CY ( ) ,CZ ( ) ,CM ( ) is the coefficient of drag force, lift force and pitching moment in local axis respectively. B:is the deck width; D:is the vertical projected area :is the air density, VZ :is the design wind speed The wind forces in (6)(8) are the function of the torsional displacement of structure. They vary as the girder displaces. The above wind forces can be transformed to the wind forces in global bridge axis as: 1 Fy ( ) = V 2CY ( ) D (9) 2 1 Fz ( ) = V2Cz ( ) B (10) 2 1 M ( ) = V 2CM ( ) B2 (11) 2 Where, C ( ) Btan 0 Cy( ) = CD ( ) L sec 0 , AN C ( ) AN tan 0 Cz ( ) = CL ( ) D sec 0 B CM ( ) = CM ( ) sec2 0 , V = VZ cos 0

Where, VZ = Vb K1 K2 K3 , Vb = Basic Wind Speed K1 = Risk co-efficient [cl. 5.3.1-IS: (Part 3) 1987] K2 = Terrain height and structure size factor [cl.5.3.2-IS: 875 (Part 3) 1987] K3 = Topography factor [cl.5.3.3 - IS: 875 (Part 3) 1987] AN = Vertical Projected Area of Bridge Deck CD, CL and CM = Static aerodynamic coefficient in wind axes. (To be obtained from wind tunnel tests)

Fig. 3: Three Components of Wind loads 5. STUDY UNDERTAKEN To increase the maximum span of cable-stayed bridges, the use of pairs of inclined pylon legs that spread out longitudinally from the girder level was considered. To examine the sensitivity of the behaviour, aerostatic load based on 55m/s wind speed along with vehicular loading as per IRC 6:2000 are used as input. The analysis is carried out using the standard software SAP-2000. The models generated for the analysis shown in Fig. 4. The span of bridges is 200m and 400m. The primary load cases and load combinations considered consist of dead load, aerostatic load and vehicular load as per IRC6:2000. In all cases, the ratio of main span to side span is two. Towers have double plane system. Tower height is one fourth of the main span lengths. The deck is fully suspended at towers position and its lateral displacement with respect to the tower is restrained. All the cables have the same section in double plane system where as the double cross section area than double plane system in single plane system as there is only one plane of cables. The cables have different pre-stressing forces to get null vertical deflection or weight and use loads. The Fig. 5 to 16 describes analysis results for both considered span of bridge. The charts will be useful for the bridge designers regarding the use of spread pylon system in longitudinal direction to reduce the

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cable forces and ultimately to reduce the cable cost at the initial stage of cable stayed bridges. Again, the responses of self-anchored type bridge and partially earth-anchored (bi-stayed) type were evaluated. It is found that the response primarily consists of forces in cable, girder and pylon as well as the moment in girder and pylon. Cable stays restrain the movement of the top of the tower and transfer directly to ground central span load.

Fig. 5: Effect on Cable Force (200m)

Self Anchored Spread Pylon System

Fig. 6: Effect on Cable Force (400m)

Bi-Stayed Spread Pylon System Fig. 4: Spread Pylon Models

Fig. 7: Effect on Deck Force (200m)

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Fig. 8: Effect on Deck Force (400m)

Fig. 11: Effect on Pylon Force (200m)

Fig. 9: Effect on Deck Moment (200m)

Fig. 12: Effect on Pylon Force (400m)

Fig. 10: Effect on Deck Moment (400m)

Fig. 13: Effect on Pylon Deflection (200m)

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component introduced into the deck is smaller. Additionally, cable sag is reduced. The effect of nonlinearity magnifies as the span of bridge increases because with the increase in span, the bridge becomes more flexible and susceptible to wind oscillations. Spread Pylon Bridge with 300 spread angle shows minimum forces in cables, deck and pylon. Again the Spread Pylon system is effective in reducing the pylon top deflection due to cross ties provided at the top of spread pylon. For long spans, bi-stayed system shows considerable reduction of axial force and bending moment in the deck than that of selfanchored system. It also imparts better flexural rigidity, which ultimately results in less deflection.

2.

3. 4. 5.

Fig. 14: Effect on Pylon Deflection (400m)

Fig. 15: Effect on Deck Deflection (200m)

7. REFERENCES [1]. Ernst HJ. Der E-Modul von Seilen unter Beruecksichtigung des Durchhanges. Der Bauingenieur 1965;40(2):525. [2]. Fleming J.F., Nonlinear Static Analysis of Cable-Stayed Bridges, Computers & Structures 1979; 10:621635. [3]. Ghali A, Neville A.M., Structural Analysis: A Unified Classical and Matrix Approach, London: Chapman & Hall; 1978. [4]. O. C. Zienkiewicz, The Finite Element Method, 3rd Edn, Ch. 19. McGraw-Hill, New York (1979). [5]. R. Kao, A Comparison of N.R. Methods and Incremental Procedures for Geometrically Nonlinear Analysis, Computers & Structures 1974; 4: 1091-1097. [6]. Uwe S., Cable Stayed Bridge Concept of Longer Spans, Journal of Bridge Engineering, Aug 1996, Vol-1, 99-103.

Fig. 16: Effect on Deck Deflection (400m) 6. CONCLUSIONS The main objective is to investigate the effects of inclination of pylon. From the result analysis, following points can be concluded: 1. The system geometry entails steeper and shorter cables. The horizontal cable force

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