Improvements on the structural response control of unconventional cable-stayed bridges by nonlinear analysis modelling

Abstract

An unusual cable stayed bridgewiththe cable stays placed below the deck and having polygonal layout due to deviation by means of struts is named under deck cable stayed (UDCS) bridge. UDCS bridges usually have significant nonlinear behaviour due to direct anchoring of cable staying system into the deck. These nonlinearities mostly depend on dimensionless slenderness parameter. Designing UDCS structures for the better cross sections utilization the prestressing of cable stays is widely used. This paper presents a new perspective for structural response control by means of eccentric anchoring of cable staying system. Numerical examples emphasises the efficiency of the proposed computational technique. Moreover, the comparison analysis carried out considering structural behaviour of the UDCS structure both as linear and nonlinear. On the basis of such comparative studies, several conclusions are drawn concerning the safety and accuracy of the structural behaviour estimates yielded by nonlinear analysis and, in particular, when accounting for all initial imperfections.