Lesson 8

Cables and Arches

Liyu XIE
College of Civil Engineering
Tongji University

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 Completed in 1937
LA, USA

Golden Gate Bridge

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Cables

■ make the assumption that the cable of

negligible weight is perfectly flexible and
inextensible
■ the cable offers no resistance to shear or
bending and, the force acting in the cable
is always tangent at points along its
length
■ Being inextensible, the cable has a
constant length both before and after the
load is applied
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Cables subjected to concentrated loads
the distances and the loads are known

4 unknown external reactions

3 unknown cable tension
1 the sag h

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Free body diagram of entire cable

obtain the tension in segment CD

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Equilibrium of points C

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Equilibrium of points B

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Cables subjected to uniform distributed load

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 Pont du Gard Completed during -15 to 14
Nimes, France

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 Lupu Bridge

Completed in 2003
Shanghai, China

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 Arches

■ Arches receive its load mainly in

compression

■ Arches can be used to reduce the

bending moments in long-span structures

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 Fixed arch

Determinacy and Stability

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 Determinacy (upgraded)

■ For a coplanar structure there are at most

three equilibrium equations for each part,
so that if there is a total of n parts and r
force and moment reaction components

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 Two-hinged arch

Determinacy and Stability

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 Three-hinged arch

Determinacy and Stability

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 Tied arch

Determinacy and Stability

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 Arched roof truss

What type of arch

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 Free-body diagram of three-hinged arch

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 Method of Section

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 Spatial Latticed Shell (diamond shape)

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 Elevation

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 Cross Section

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