Footbridge 2014 th 5 International Conference Footbridges: Past, present & future

SMALL SUSPENSION BRIDGES USING 7-WIRE STRAND CABLES

Angus LOW Consultant Arup London, UK angus.low@arup.com

Summary
The introduction of new codes fundamentally changes the way that small suspension bridges are designed, and will probably change the basic configuration of such bridges. An earlier paper discussed suitable configurations for bridges with prefabricated strands for the main cables. This paper extends the discussion to bridges with main cables made from 7-wire strand systems, similar to those widely used for the stays of cable-stayed bridges. These are likely to be more economic. A design study for a 170m span footbridge is used to show how the configuration of the bridge is driven by the performance characteristics of the simplest 7-wire strand cable system. It is shown that the standard stay system can be used directly, possibly with an increase in wall thickness for the ducts. Keywords: 7-wire strand cable systems, orthogonal geometry, aesthetics.

1.

Introduction

The introduction of robustness clauses in codes which refer to disproportionate collapse (as in Eurocodes) and single load paths (as in North America) fundamentally changes the way that small suspension are designed. They are typically used as footbridges across rivers. They are an alternative to the cable-stayed configurations that are widely used. The softer form and lower profile may be preferred in some contexts, and by some designers. Small suspension bridges often use single cables for their main cables, either a single cable on each side or a monocable. The cables themselves are formed from many wires, and so are highly redundant. The failure of one or two wires will reduce the overall safety of the bridge, but the bridge can be designed to be safe in this condition. It is the anchorages which are the problem. Most anchorages rely on a single metal component. This is not acceptable with a design philosophy which requires the failure of every component to be included as a possibility. In an earlier paper [1] the author discussed the case of bridges with cables made from prefabricated strands, and concluded that each cable should be made from, typically, four separate strands, independently anchored at the ends. Even with four strands it was not clear if the cable clamps for the hangers would be able to perform satisfactorily after the sudden failure of one strand. The failure would impose the full force in the broken strand onto the adjacent clamps. It was proposed that either separate clamps and hangers would be provided for each strand, or the problem could be avoided by using an orthogonal cable geometry in which the hangers are normal to the main cables and the cable clamps would be replaced with simple cable clasps which would not restrain the broken strand. Because the cable is made up from four separately ducted and anchored strands it will be quite simple in future to replace the cable system. Economy has been achieved in the design of cable-stayed bridges by replacing the old practice of using spiral strand cables with cables composed of 7-wire strands. This paper considers how a similar change can bring economy to the design of small suspension bridge both by reducing the cost of the cables and by removing the need for complicated and unsightly cable clamps.

2.

7-wire strand cables

7-wire steel strands were developed for prestressing cables for prestressed concrete. They are a standard item, produced in large quantities and there are standard jacks for stressing single strands or cables composed of many strands. Because of their high strength and widespread use they are probably the cheapest means to carry a given tension load. Typically they are composed of 7 strands of 5mm diameter steel with an Ultimate Tensile Strength of 1860 MPa. The wires are in a spiral configuration with a small helix angle so there is only a small angle between the axis of

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the wires and the axis of the strand. At anchorages they are anchored into steel anchor blocks through holes with drilled tapers, with specially shaped three-part wedges which grip the strand with shallow teeth. In the late 1970s the prestressing technology was adapted so it could be used for the stays of cable-stayed bridges. The resulting stays were significantly cheaper than the spiral strands cables used previously, and better suited to the bigger sizes needed for bigger bridges, because the 7-wire strands could be stressed individually. Fatigue was an issue, and care was needed in refining the design of the anchorages to improve their fatigue performance. Adequacy was demonstrated in full-sized fatigue tests under actual cable loads. The durability systems for stay cables evolved and now, typically, the 7-wire strands are greased and sheathed individually, and protected within a watertight duct of uPVC. It is proposed that the same cable system will be used for the main cables of small suspension footbridges. Suspension bridges introduce an additional need. They need cable clamps or, as introduced in the earlier paper [1], cable clasps which transfer forces lateral to the main cables, but not longitudinal forces. This paper explores the use of cable clasps.

3.

Design of an example footbridge

The design process has a depth parameter. Most design activity is quite shallow. It is a sizing process, fitting a preexisting orthodoxy to a specific context. The current activity is deeper. The basic rules have changed and it is necessary to think through every aspect of the design and each detail from first principles at the concept stage. Perhaps this can be called pioneer design. In particular it is the cable clasp that needs to be considered, and an example footbridge is used to provide data for the studies. The example footbridge studied here has a span of 170m measured between the tops of its masts, with a 3.5m wide deck (Fig. 1). There is a main cable on each side of the deck. Ii is a river crossing for a lightly trafficked combined footpath and cycle path. Suspension bridges are not common and it is unlikely that cable suppliers will develop special equipment for them. The intention is to find a robust, simple design that can be built and maintained cheaply and reliably using currently available products. It is hoped that this example will encourage the construction of suspension bridges at sites where otherwise one would not have been considered.

Fig 1. Half elevation.. Because the strands are replaceable the elevation shows strand caps projecting about 1m from the anchorages at the top of the towers. These protect the length of extension strand needed to reconnect a jack for adjustment or replacement. Strand caps have not been shown for the back-stays because it is assumed that they will be jacked from within a buried chamber. The length and width of this span make it certain that it would be subjected to synchronous lateral excitation (SLE) under dense, one-way pedestrian traffic. The designers would need to discuss options with the client. The likelihood of such traffic might be so low that the resulting lateral motions might be deemed acceptable, with a warning at the ends of the bridge. If it is decided to guard against such motions then it might need not only tuned-mass dampers, but also a stiffening chord on outriggers, as proposed for a scheme for a cycle-bridge at Linz [2] [3]. The criterion for SLE is set out in [4]. A conceptual framework and case histories for lateral damping of footbridges are given in [5] and [6]. It is a ground anchored suspension bridge which needs founding conditions that can accept a large, permanent horizontal load. The alternative, a self-anchored suspension bridge, can be considered at any site, but it behaves in a different way. Because the deck is in compression and it follows the deformations of the cable, the ability of the simple catenary to carry patch loads through cable deformation is lost. The deck has to be strong enough to convert all patch live loads into continuously distributed loads, the only type of load that can be resisted directly by the cable geometry.

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At most sites rockhead is likely to be at some depth below ground. A likely form of anchorage will combine raking compression piles and raking tension piles. Alternatively a shaft might be taken down to rockhead and the tension piles replaced with bored diagonal ducts to be received at the foot of the shaft. Replaceable ties would be threaded through the ducts. With a span of 170m and a deck which is quite narrow aerodynamic stability will be an issue. The deck should provide minimum resistance and so should the parapet. It is envisaged that the deck is be 450mm deep. If snow is possible the parapet should be open enough so that snow cannot accumulate across the gaps. If the torsional frequency is too low the spacing of the cables needs to be increased with outriggers added to the deck.

3.1

General configuration

The span to dip ratio of big suspension bridges is typically about 10. The height of the shortest hangers at midspan needs to be added to the dip. The stiffness of the cable system is increased if the cable is anchored to the deck at midspan. The current study is based on the use of the simplest cable system so the cable runs past midspan with no break in the protecting duct, and so no clamping system. Under half-span loading the cable moves longitudinally relative to the deck. The smaller the dip the smaller the movement. The hanger has to be long enough to absorb the movement. The cable system is cheap so this pushes the economics towards a shallower dip, which increases the effective stiffness of the deck and improves aerodynamics. It also reduces the height of the tower, which increases the options for the form of the tower. The dip ratio is 18.5 giving a dip of 9.2m. This results in the use of 28 strands in each cable which consist of four separate sub-cables each with their own duct and 7 strands in each duct. At the ends each duct leads to a separate anchor block for seven 7-wire strands. The height of the shortest hanger is 2m so the height of the anchorage above the deck is 11.2m. At this height the tower can be maintained from a standard cherry-picker. Is there a saddle or are there anchorages at the top of the tower? The bridge has one long span with short anchor cables on each side. The dip angle of the cables is different on the two sides of the tower, so the cable force is different. It is not suited to a saddle. The tower is made in concrete and standard cable-stayed anchorages are used cast into the concrete. The dimensions of the concrete are large enough at the top of the tower to provide space for the cables to splay as they expand from the standard cable configuration to the larger space needed for the anchorages. The hangers are connected to the cables with clasps which are not able to transfer longitudinal forces into the cables. Hence the orthogonal geometry in which the hangers are normal to the cables and inclined to the vertical. Because of the shallow dip the inclinations are small. To unify the design the tower has been given the same inclination. A consequence of this is that there is no appropriate way to provide hangers on the short back span. No hangers are provided and the back span has to span as a beam. Support from the tower is provided in the form of short branches. The cables are anchored into the towers on both banks, which are linked through to backstays to ground anchorages. Temperature variation results in variation in the dip of the main span. The deck is free longitudinally at both ends. The shortness of the cables at midspan ensures that the deck expands and contracts from a neutral point near midspan.

3.2

The clasps

The design of the clasps is central to the whole concept. Each sub-cable is supplied as if it were a stay for a cable stayed bridge, but it is used in a different way. The hanger forces impose localised lateral forces onto the cables, resulting in local contact pressures. The forces result in angular deviations in the cable at each clasp and hence bending stresses in the strands. The clasp is shown in Fig. 2. The ducts have an internal diameter of 82mm, as for a 7 strand cable-stay, and their centrelines are separated by 120mm both horizontally and vertically. The hanger force is transferred into the four separate sub-cables. The open hook system allows a sub-cable to be removed and replaced easily. If one cable fails, or during the replacement of a sub-cable the resistance of the remaining three sub-cables is eccentric to the hanger. In this clasp the eccentricity would be 18mm. The hanger is anchored into the clasp at some distance below the cable to minimise the deformation angle when this happens. The nut of the hanger is seated on a rubber washer to accept the resulting rotation. For maintenance and repainting each clasp can be removed in turn by de-stressing the hanger, and fencing off part of the adjacent deck to control the loads on the adjacent hangers during maintenance.

3.2.1

Bending stresses

The bending of the end of a free cable under tension with an imposed rotation is described on page 147 of [7]. The bending stress increases with the angular deviation but it is independent of the diameter of the cable. The bending stress can be reduced by reducing the angular deviation and this is achieved by reducing the spacing between the hangers. Alternatively the bending stress can be reduced by providing a saddle for it to follow. If RF is the

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radius of saddle that produces a stress equal to that in the free cable and is the angular deviation then RF * is the limiting length of the saddle = d*64/(E/), which is independent of .

Fig. 2 Section and view of the cable clasp For a typical 7-wire strand d=15.7mm. Because of the spiral lay of the strand, bending of the strand will cause a local distortion which increases the lay angle. This has the effect of significantly reducing the effective E for flexure. In the absence of test data on 7-wire strands in bending while rotationally free, it is assumed the effective E is reduced by a factor of 2. Assume the axial stress in the cable is at its SLS limit of 0.45 UTS = 837 MPa. Hence the limiting length of the saddle = 90.8mm. Any saddle longer than this length will reduce the bending stress. In the example the hanger spacing is 6m and the maximum imposed angular deviation of 42.7 milliradians occurs under a local length of live load, about 6m long. This causes an SLS free bending stress of 272 MPa, and a total SLS stress of 272+396 = 668 MPa. The maximum live load case gives a smaller bending stress of 141 MPa but a greater total SLS stress of 141+827 = 971 MPa. This is slightly greater than the limit of 0.5*UTS = 930 MPa given in Table 7.2 of EN 19931-11. A saddle detail is needed which is longer than the limiting length 0f 90.8mm which is much less than the 160mm length of the detail s shown in Fig. 2.

3.2.2

Contact pressures

The presence of contact stresses between the strands and the inside faces of the ducts is a key difference between the cables as used for the stays of cable-stayed bridges and the main cables of suspension bridges. Because of these contact stresses the duct walls may need to be thicker than those used for cable stays. The model used for calculating the bending stresses in 3.2.1 above assumes that the hangers provide a point contact on the cable. The clasp shown in Fig. 2 provides a seating length of 160mm Guidance on acceptable contact forces between a cable of 7-wire strands and an HDPE duct comes indirectly from rules for the minimum radius of prestressing ducts in concrete. These rules apply to bare strands. The contact pressures should probably be reduced because of the greased sheaths. The Eurocodes refer to EN 10138 for limits on duct radiuses. This is not yet published. BS 5400 Part 4 6.8.7 limits the radius to 50 times the duct diameter within deviators. 7 strand cables use a duct with an internal diameter of 60mm, so the limiting radius is 3.00m. Taking 7 strands at 80% of UTS around this radius results in a lateral force of 521 kN/m. The maximum hanger force onto four sub-cables is 71 kN. The internal diameter of a duct for a cable stay is larger, 82mm against 60mm. So the contact length needed = 71/4/521*60/82 = 24.9mm, which again is much less than the 160mm length of the detail shown in Fig. 2. If the saddle is shaped with a constant radius along its 160mm length under the maximum angular deviation of 42.7mm then the radius is 0.160/42.7e-3 = 3.75m. The versine along the length of the saddle is 0.85mm. This is small so it is proposed that the saddle is fabricated as a straight length. The saddle will flex slightly and the wall of the duct will deform

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slightly as the strand imposes its desired curvature.

3.3

Construction

On cable-stayed bridges there is usually a length of deck available when the cables are erected, and this is used to lay out the stays before they are lifted into place. For the suspension bridge there is no deck before the cables are erected. It is likely that a single strand would be draped to the correct dip at about 1m above the final cable position. The pattern of four ducts together with the clasps, inverted and lashed to them, will be suspended from the strand and pulled slowly across by a draw rope,. The ducts will come off reels and the clasps will be added as the pull progresses. With the ducts in place the strands will be threaded. The deck erection will progress in bays from the towers. It is usual to erect the deck of a suspension bridges with temporary hinges between deck units because of the deformations when the deck is incomplete. Because of the small dip the deformations will not be very large.

4.

Commentary

For sites where it is affordable to anchor horizontal loads this study suggests that it is possible to build a simple, reliable, maintainable suspension footbridge using 7-wire strand stay components which are usually used for the stays of cablestayed bridges. The greatest uncertainty relates to the aerodynamic behaviour of the bridge, but this comment would apply to any footbridge of this span. The cable system is equally applicable for a self-anchored suspension bridge where ground anchoring the cables would be expensive. The deck would need to be deeper to resist the much greater deck moments, and this might make it more difficult to solve the aerodynamic problems. Bending stresses in the strands are more significant than the lateral contact stresses when choosing the spacing of the hangers. In the calculations the bending stresses vary with the square root of the effective E of the spiral 7-wire strand under local flexure and this could be significantly less than the standard E value. Test data is desirable, but conservative assumptions can be used in the absence of data. If tests are made it is important the strands are released in torsion during the test because it is the flexibility resulting for the spiral form of the strand that is being measured.

5.

Conclusions

This initial study considers the consequences of using a standard 7-wire strand stay system for the main cables of a suspension footbridge. The results are encouraging and it is hoped that clients and designers will consider using the suspension bridge configuration instead of the cable-stayed configuration for medium and longer span footbridges.

6.
[1] [2] [3] [4]

References
LOW A,. The design of small suspension bridges, Bridge Engineering 163 BE4, ICE London, December 2010. LOW A., The design of long-span footbridges First international conference on advances in bridge engineering, Brunel University, London 2006. LOW A., Designing for dynamic effects in long span bridges, Chapter 3 in Footbridge vibration design, Taylor & Francis, London 2009. DALLARD P., FITZPATRICK A.J, FLINT A., LE BOURVA S., LOW A., RIDSDILL SMITH R.M. and WILLFORD M. The London Millennium Footbridge, The Structural Engineer, Volume 79/No. 22, London 20 November 2001. DE DONNO A., POWELL D. and LOW A., Design of damping systems for footbridges Conceptual framework, Footbridge 2005, Venice POWELL D., DE DONNO A. & LOW A., Design of damping systems for footbridges Experience from Gatwick and IJburg, Footbridge 2005, Venice GIMSING N.J., Cable supported bridges, Wiley, Chichester UK, 2nd edition 1998, 471 pp.

[5] [6] [7]