The Behavior of Cable-Stayed Bridges Having Different Cable

Arrangements under Static and Dynamic Loads

Metin HUSEM Selim PUL Yousef ZAND M. Emin ARSLAN
Department of Civil Engineering, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon/Turkey
http://www.ktu.edu.tr

Abstract- Cable-stayed bridges have recently been preferred to cross middle or large size spans because of having
high capacity of load-carrying, low cost, esthetic look and short building periods. As the population grows, number of
vehicles and necessity of motorways for transportation grow as well. In the projects, bridges are designed containing
two or three decks instead of one large deck. In this study, behavior fan shaped, harp shaped and semi-harp type
cable-stayed, with double deck, bridges having the same condition of deck, tower and support were examined.
Key Words: Cable-stayed bridge, Deck, Double deck, Static analysis, Dynamic analysis, Period

1 Introduction
Cable-stayed bridges have recently been preferred to
cross middle or large size spans because of having high
capacity of load-carrying, low cost, esthetic look and
short building periods. As the population grows,
number of vehicles and necessity of motorways for
transportation grow as well. In the projects, bridges are
designed containing two or three decks instead of one
large deck. The 32 m. span completely wooden bridge
built by C.T. Loeshe, the carpenter can be considered
the first example of modern cabled bridges[1]. The 79
m. span bridg eon the River Tweed in Dryburg Abbey
was the first cable bridge supported by sloped chains.
In 1821, French Architect Poyet suggested the system
in which chains were hang onto quite high towers using
wrought iron bars. In those suggested systems, bar
supplies were arranged in fan shaped and were placed
on the top of the tower. Poyets system was developed
by Novier and rigid bridge systems were formed using
sloped chains in 1823. In 1868, Franz Joseph bridge,
which was designed by Ordish and Le Feuvre as the
combination of suspension bridge and cable-stayed
bridge, was built [1,2]. A lot of cable-stayed bridges
built until the 19
th
century was collapsed after at while
because of using inappropriate materials like iron and
chain or in adequate structure components. However, in
the beginning of 20
th
century cable-stayed bridges
started being widely used thanks to the developments
of structural technology and using high strength steel
for the cables. Dischinger built the Strmsund
(Sweden) bridge which was considered one of the first

modern cable-stayed bridges. Because this bridge
behaved quite rigid under traffic load, because it looked
esthetically nice and because it was built easily and
economically, application area of cable-stayed bridge
systems increased[4]. A lot of research were done on
cable-stayed bridge by researches. Some of these
research are given in references [4-10].
Today and in the future motorways are supposed to
carry great loads double deck cable-stayed bridges are
going to be built instead of single deck cable-stayed
bridges. In this study, behavior fan shaped, harp shaped
and semi-harp type cable-stayed, with double deck,
bridges having the same condition of deck, tower and
support were examined.
2 The Design Procedure and Analysis
In this study, pre-designing was used as suggested by
Gimsing[11] and Troisky[12] in order to do structural
analyze of cable-stayed double deck bridges having
different cable types under their own weight, traffic and
seismic load. According to this, in cable-stayed brides
when H shaped towers are used, the ratio of middle
span to deck height changed between 1/50 and 1/150
for orthotropic decks. In this study, the main span was
chosen as 210 m. The width of deck was chosen 16 m.
(4 lines of 3 m width and 2 m. pedestrian way on both
sides). The ratio of over deck tower height to middle
span changed between 0.2 and 0.25. Bridges sizes
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determined according to this ratio and harp type cable
arrangements were given in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Model of cable-Stayed Bridge (harp type)
In this study, tower height is 69 m. an cross section
dimensions are 500 cm x 500 cm on the base and 400
cm x 400 cm on the top. As cable, locking wrapped
cable which has 1170 MPa yield strength in tension
was used. As traffic load, 3 axles truck with the weight
of 325 kN was used as stated in AASTHO[13] . It was
considered that 8 m vehicles were placed consecutively
in all lines on whole bridge. Total traffic load was
divided into the length of bridge and it was given to the
deck as 40 kN7m mobile load in the middle of 3 m
width lines.

In this study, the records of Kocaeli earthquake was
used as seismic load (Figure 2).













Figure 2. Accelerate-time diagrams of Kocaeli
Earthquake
In the dynamic analysis of time-definition area 0.6g,
load on east-west direction and north-south direction
and 0.4g, load on the vertical direction were applied.
The static and dynamic analyses were done using
structural analysis program (SAP 2000). The diameter
of cables being used in these bridges changed between
80 mm and 160 mm. Towers and co-feet were fixed to
the basement. Transverse beams of orthotropic deck
were placed on the bridge with 3 meter spaces. In
Figure 3, longitudinal cross sections of cable-stayed
bridges in Figure 4, numbering of cables and in Figure
5, deck cross-section were given.






Figure 3. Longitudinal cross sections of cable-stayed
bridges models






Figure 4. Numbering of cables



Figure 5. Deck cross-section of cable-stayed bridges

3 Results and Discussion
Cable force obtained at the end of non-linear static
analysis on this studys models was given in Table 1.
According to this, between the least forced cables, fan
type were less than the others. Therefore, it showed that
3
x
2
.
7
5

Harp type Fan type
3
9
.
4
6

m

2.5 m
3 m
8

m

6
.
4
6


9
x
2
.
7
5


m

3
3
.
4
6

m

2
1
.
4
6

m

1
2
x
1
.
5


16 m
Semi-harp
type
16 m 16 m
K13 O13 K13 O13
K1 O1
K1 O1
K1 O1
K13 O13
16 m
2
.
8
6

m

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ISBN: 978-1-61804-022-0 243
smaller section cables could be used for static loads in
fan type cable-stayed bridge models.
Table 1. Cables forces obtained at the end of non-
linear analysis (kN)
Cable Yar harp tip Fan Tipi Harp tipi
O1 4289.89 4092.97 4727.71
O2 3080.28 3002.76 3297.98
O3 2960.75 2936.70 3084.98
O4 2999.70 3016.22 3052.72
O5 2976.64 3019.74 2963.92
O6 2965.51 3022.33 2892.31
O7 2710.28 2746.36 2595.46
O8 2601.31 2616.96 2458.72
O9 2502.10 2452.72 2357.93
O10 2303.39 2171.69 2171.32
O11 2097.19 1842.67 2051.85
O12 1748.91 1393.45 1823.13
O13 1340.13 908.32 1716.26
K1 5337.37 5240.11 5551.54
K2 3342.10 3322.82 3423.82
K3 3098.51 3114.92 3126.84
K4 2836.49 2877.92 2816.45
K5 2780.53 2837.37 2714.10
K6 2711.42 2775.49 2604.27
K7 2396.23 2448.57 2262.10
K8 2293.42 2320.33 2134.87
K9 2151.36 2136.61 1975.21
K10 1998.32 1910.72 1834.53
K11 1776.14 1609.82 1648.22
K12 1514.63 1250.86 1505.02
K13 1132.86 822.51 1283.40

Under static loads, in Figure 6 strain of deck, in Figure
7 displacement of tower were given. The smallest
displacement value in the middle of deck was 0.242 m
and it was semi-harp type model. The biggest value
was 0.264 m and it was harp type model. For tower top
point displacement the smallest value was 0.062 m in
fan type, the biggest value was 0.0066 m in harp type.
The shear forces and moments were given in Table 2
for each cable-stayed bridge models. According to this,
the smallest value happened in fan type model. The
axial load of tower was 73173 kN in harp type model,
75197 kN in semi-harp type model, 74440 kN in fan
type model. According to this, axial load was small in
harp type model, on the other hand, shear force and
moment was small is fan type.






Figure 6. Displacement of bridge deck






Figure 7. Displacement of tower

Table 2. Shear force and moment formed on the towers
at the level of lower deck
Model tip
Kesme kuvveti
(kN)
Moment
(kNm)
Fan tip 15404 180545
Yar harp tip 15943 188456
Harp tip 16898 201662

Force distribution in single deck bridge was under the
effect of compressive force on the middle part of the
deck and under the effect of tension force on the tower
connected region. However when the second deck was
added, unlike the upper deck, the lower deck was under
the effect of tension farce on the middle part and under
the effect of mostly compressive force on the tower
connected region.
The biggest stress on the decks under static loads
became on the middle of deck and on the connected
region of tower and deck. The biggest compressive
stress on lower and tower connected region became
11043 kN/m
2
in fan type model, 11261 kN/m
2
in semi-
harp type, and 12544 kN/m
2
in harp type model. On the
case of stress distributions, fan type model became the
most decided structure under static loads. The first 20
mods period values calculated using analyzing method
in time definition area for double deck cable-stayed
FAN type
HARP type
SEMI-HARP type
Bridge span, m
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t
,

m

FAN type
HARP type
SEMI-HARP type
Towers top displacement, m
T
o
w
e
r

h
e
i
g
h
t
,

m

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ISBN: 978-1-61804-022-0 244
bridge models whose dynamic analysis were studied
were given in Table 3. As examples of mode shapes,
the first six modes of all bridge types were given in
Table 4.
Table 3. First 20 modes and period values for double
deck cable-stayed bridge models.
Mode Yar harp tip Fan Tipi Harp tipi
1 2.14 2.14 2.10
2 1.64 1.62 1.68
3 0.85 0.89 0.86
4 0.82 0.88 0.79
5 0.78 0.84 0.76
6 0.75 0.76 0.71
7 0.72 0.74 0.64
8 0.61 0.63 0.61
9 0.60 0.59 0.59
10 0.58 0.57 0.58
11 0.54 0.55 0.53
12 0.52 0.52 0.52
13 0.49 0.50 0.48
14 0.46 0.46 0.47
15 0.45 0.45 0.45
16 0.39 0.40 0.40
17 0.38 0.39 0.39
18 0.37 0.38 0.37
19 0.35 0.35 0.35
20 0.32 0.32 0.33

As it was seen in these tables, harp type model and
semi-harp type model had less lateral deformation
under dynamic effect, on the other hand, fan type
model had its lateral and torsion modes in earlier
modes. Both mode shapes and natural period values
had similarities with other researches about the
topic[4,14]. But, because having very few researches
on double deck cable-stayed bridges and differences of
models on these researches, different results could be
obtained in double deck bridges. Because of supporting
conditions, the first mode could be formed
longitudinally direction of the bridge[15,16]. As it was
seen in this study, the second and later modes shapes
were horizontal mode shape, vertical mode shape and
torsional mode shape. As the number of support was
reduced the systems mobility ability increased and
became more flexible.


Table 4. Mode shapes belonged to the first 6 models of
double deck cable-stayed bridges
Harp tip Yar harp tip Fan tip


Mode #1
(Horizontal)
T = 2.10s



Mode #1
(Horizontal)
T = 2.14s


Mode #1
(Horizontal)
T = 2.14s



Mode #2
(Vertical)
T = 1.68s



Mode #2
(Vertical)
T = 1.64s



Mode #2
(Vertical)
T = 1.62s


Mode #3
(Vertical)
T = 0.86s


Mode #3
(Vertical)
T = 0.85s


Mode #3
(Horizontal)
T = 0.89s



Mode #4
(Horizontal)
T = 0.79s



Mode #4
(Horizontal)
T = 0.82s



Mode #4
(Torsion)
T = 0.88s



Mode #5
(Vertical)
T = 0.76s




Mode #5
(Torsion)
T = 0.78s




Mode #5
(Vertical)
T = 0.84s



Mode #6
(Torsion)
T = 0.71s




Mode #6
(Vertical)
T = 0.75s




Mode #6
(Horizontal)
T = 0.76s

4 Conclusion
There are the results obtained from this study which is
developed to research double deck cable-stayed
bridges behavior.
In the result of non-linear static analyses, it was
seen that the most forced cables were long ones
in the middle span and edge spans. The biggest
cable forces were in harp type model and the
smallest ones were in fan type model.
In the result of non-linear static load the
smallest displacement on decks was in semi-
harp type models and the biggest one was in
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ISBN: 978-1-61804-022-0 245
harp type models. The biggest displacement in
the middle of deck in harp type model was 9%
more than semi-harp type and 6% more than
fan type.
Total axial forces happened in towers in harp
type model was 2% less than fan type model
and 3% less than semi-harp type. Shear forces
in harp type model was 10% more than fan
type model and 6% more than semi-harp type
model. Moment values in harp type model
were 12% bigger than fan type model and 7%
bigger than semi-harp type model.
The first 20 mode belonged to the research
were examined and it was seen that mode
shapes of harp type model and semi-harp type
models were similar but mode shapes of fan
type models were different. In harp and semi-
harp models the 2
nd
and the 3
rd
modes shapes
were vertical but in fan type model, 3
rd
mode
shape was tortional.
In the result of non-linear dynamic analysis, it
was seen that the most forced cables were the
longest ones in middle span and edge spans.
The smallest cable forces were in harp type
models and semi-harp type model.
Under static loads, fan type cabled bridges
were superior to the other models from the
point of displacement and stress, on the other
hand, under dynamic loads it was observed that
harp type model behaved more determined.


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ISBN: 978-1-61804-022-0 246