Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc

Analysis of target con®gurations under dead loads for

cable-supported bridges
Ki-Seok Kim, Hae Sung Lee *
Department of Civil Engineering, Seoul National University, San 56-1, Shillim-dong, Kwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, South Korea
Received 19 May 2000; accepted 18 June 2001

Abstract
This paper presents a rigorous approach for analyzing the target con®gurations of cable-supported structures under
dead loads by the Newton±Raphson method. A linearized equilibrium equation of a cable element, which includes the
nodal coordinates and the unstrained element length as unknowns, is formulated using the analytical solution of an
elastic catenary cable. An incremental equilibrium equation for a single cable is formed with the proposed equilibrium
matrices of cable elements. The geometry of the target con®guration of a cable-supported structure under dead loads is
utilized to solve the incremental equilibrium equation. Detailed procedures to analyze the target con®gurations of
suspension bridges and cable-stayed bridges are presented. The eciency and the accuracy of the proposed method are
demonstrated through numerical examples. Ó 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Target con®guration under dead loads; Cable-supported structures; Elastic catenary cable; Newton±Raphson method;
Suspension bridge; Cable-stayed bridge

1. Introduction Therefore, only deformed shape of a cable structure

Cable-supported structures have been recognized as
the most appealing structural type for large-scale struc-
tures such as long-span suspension bridges and cable-
stayed bridges due to the various structural advantages
of cables as well as their aesthetic appearances. With
the recent advances of structural analysis techniques and
construction technologies, a suspension bridge with a
main span length reaching almost 2000 m emerges into
reality [1]. As cable-supported structures become larger
and longer, more accurate and precise analysis tech-
niques are required to consider the various nonlinear
behaviors of cables.
Since the lateral sti€ness of a cable is developed from
applied tensions, no unique undeformed con®guration
of a cable structure is de®ned in the stress-free state.
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82-2-880-8388; fax: +82-2-
887-0349.
E-mail address: chslee@plaza.snu.ac.kr (H.S. Lee).
under dead loads is predetermined in the design stage
dissimilar to framed structures. The deformed shape of
a structure under dead loads is referred to as the tar-
get con®guration under dead loads (TCUD) hereafter,
which is also known as the dead load deformed state
[2,3] or the initial equilibrium con®guration [4]. The
TCUD is usually determined by the functional require-
ments of a structure, a designer's past experiences, etc.
The unstrained lengths and initial tensions of cables
that yield the TCUD of a cable structure are unknown,
and should be determined through the TCUD analysis.
Since the TCUD serves as the reference con®guration
for further structural analyses under other load cases,
a robust and rigorous analysis of the TCUD is crucial
in the design of modern, large-scale cable-supported
structures.
The TCUD analysis is a nonlinear problem that re-
quires an iterative solution strategy due to the unknown,
unstrained lengths of cables as well as nonlinear rela-
tionships between applied loads and deformed shapes of
cables [5,6]. This paper presents a new approach based

0045-7949/01/$ - see front matter Ó 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 4 5 - 7 9 4 9 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 1 2 0 - 1
2682 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692
on the Newton±Raphson method for obtaining the un-
strained lengths and the equilibrium con®gurations of
cables simultaneously by solving the equilibrium equa-
tion with the information supplied by the TCUD. The
analytical solution [5] of an elastic catenary cable is
utilized to derive the linearized equilibrium equation of a
cable element in terms of the unknown nodal coordi-
nates and unstrained lengths of cable elements.
Either the trial-and-error approach [2] or succes-
sive substitution method [7,8] has been utilized for the
TCUD analysis of a cable-supported structure. In both
methods, the equilibrium equation of a cable-supported
structure is solved iteratively with either an assumed
unstrained length or tension of each cable element. Since
the converged equilibrium con®guration with assumed
variables does not satisfy the TCUD, the assumed
variables are adjusted either by a designer's judgements
in the trial-and-error approach or by solving governing
equations with converged variables in the successive
substitution method. Since it is dicult to enforce the
target geometry precisely by trial and error, the trial-
and-error approach yields only an approximate solution.
The successive substitution method su€ers from a slow
convergence rate. In addition, the whole equilibrium
equation should be solved repeatedly for updating ten-
sions or unstrained lengths of cable elements in the
successive substitution method, which requires a signi-
®cant amount of computational e€ort. The proposed
Fig. 1. Undeformed and deformed con®guration.
method can overcome the aforementioned drawbacks
of the trial-and-error approach and the successive sub-
stitution method in the TCUD analyses of cable struc-
tures.
Detailed procedures for the analysis of the TCUD
are proposed for suspension bridges and cable-stayed
bridges, which are typical cable-supported structures.
The accuracy and e€ectiveness of the proposed method
are demonstrated by two numerical examples. It is shown
that the proposed method exhibits a quadratic conver-
gence rate and yields a solution that satis®es the TCUD
and the equilibrium equation exactly.
2. Finite element modeling of cables
In the design stage of a framed structure such as a
beam or a frame, the undeformed con®guration of a
structure is predetermined based on functional require-
ments, engineers experiences, etc. The displacement ®eld
under dead loads is easily calculated by usual structural
analysis techniques based on the prede®ned undeformed
con®guration as shown in Fig. 1a. This is because the
framed structures possess an initial sti€ness independent
of applied loads. In case of a cable structure, however,
no unique undeformed con®guration corresponding to
the equilibrium con®guration under dead loads shown
 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692 2683

in Fig. 1b is de®ned as the lateral sti€ness of a cable

is developed from applied tensions, which is the most
distinctive mechanical property of cable structures. Even
though a cable is loaded by its own self-weight without
any external load, a proper tension should be applied
to the cable to support the self-weight with a desired
shape.
In the design stage of a cable structure, a TCUD is
predetermined by design requirements instead of an
undeformed con®guration. The TCUD of a cable struc-
ture usually de®nes geometric characteristics of the
structure such as the magnitude of main sag and the
locations of applied loads, etc. under an equilibrium
state for dead loads. The TCUD represents a desired
equilibrium con®guration for dead loads and applied
Fig. 2. Elastic catenary cable element.
tensions, which is essentially a deformed shape. The
unstrained cable length and initial tensions required
at the time of the cable installment, which yield the     
Fx Le0 Fx Fy ‡ wLe0 Fy
predetermined TCUD, are unknown. Therefore, usual /ex ˆ sinh 1 sinh 1
EA w Fx Fx
structural analysis techniques cannot be employed to Fy e w
analyze a cable structure for the TCUD since they re- /ey ˆ L …Le †2
EA 0 2EA 0
quire the information on the undeformed con®guration q q
1
of a structure. Determination procedure of the unknown Fx2 ‡ …Fy ‡ wLe0 †2 Fx2 ‡ Fy2
w
initial lengths and tensions of a cable structure that lead
to the predetermined TCUD is referred to as the TCUD …2†
analysis.
This chapter presents an elastic catenary cable ele- Here, Fx and Fy denote x- and y-component of Fe1 ,
ment with an unknown initial length for the TCUD respectively, and w is the weight of the cable per unit
analysis. The analytical solution of an elastic catenary length. Notice that Eq. (1) de®nes the relative position
cable is utilized to derive the elastic catenary cable ele- between two nodes, not nodal displacements because the
ment [5]. The linearized equilibrium equation of the stress-free, reference con®guration is not available for
proposed element includes the unstrained length of a a cable. The external equilibrium condition yields the
cable element as well as the nodal coordinates as un- following additional relation between Fe2 and Fe1 :
knowns. A ®nite element procedure based on the New-
ton±Raphson method for a single cable is also presented Fe2 ˆ Fe1 wLe0 …3†
using the proposed cable element. The information
supplied by the prede®ned TCUD is utilized to solve the where w ˆ …0; w†T .
incremental equilibrium equation. To employ a standard ®nite element procedure, the
nodal forces have to be expressed with respect to the
nodal coordinates of a cable element. Due to the non-
2.1. Elastic catenary cable element with an unknown linearity of Eq. (2), however, only the incremental rela-
initial length tion can be utilized. Since the unstrained cable length is
not known a priori in the design stage, the unstrained
Fig. 2 illustrates a two-dimensional cable element length of the cable element is considered an unknown
subjected to its self-weight and nodal forces at both variable. The Taylor expansion of Eq. (2) with respect to
ends, which are denoted as Fe1 and Fe2 , respectively. The Fe1 and Le0 leads to the following expression:
analytical solution of an elastic catenary cable de®nes
the relative position of node 2 to node 1 in terms of the o/ex o/e o/e
D/ex ˆ DFx ‡ x DFy ‡ x DLe0 ‡ HOT
nodal forces, self-weight and unstrained length of the oFx oFy oL0
cable element as follows [5]: e e …4†
o/ y o/y o/ey e
D/ey ˆ DFx ‡ DFy ‡ DL ‡ HOT
xe2 xe1 ˆ /e …Fe1 ; Le0 † …1† oFx oFy oL0 0

where Le0 , xe1 and xe2 are the unstrained length, the co- The detailed form of each term in Eq. (4) is given in
ordinates of node 1 and 2 of element e, respectively, and Appendix A. The linearized form of Eq. (4) is obtained
the components of /e are given as follows: by neglecting the higher order terms (HOT):
2684 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692

o/e e o/e e on the cable. Since the element equilibrium matrix given
Dxe2 Dxe1  DF1 ‡ e DL0 : …5†
oFe1 oL0 in Eq. (7) is based on the analytical solution of an elastic
catenary cable, one cable element between two adjacent
The increments of the nodal forces are expressed in concentrated loads is sucient for converging to the
terms of the increments of the nodal coordinates and the exact solution of the given cable. Two kinds of support
unstrained length of the cable element by solving Eq. (5) conditions in horizontal direction are considered: (1) the
for DFe1 and using the incremental form of Eq. (3): ®xed condition and (2) the free condition (pulley sup-
 e 1  e 1 e port). The ®xed condition represents a support at which
o/ o/ o/
DFe1 ˆ e …Dxe2 Dxe1 † DLe cables are rigidly ®xed. The free condition is adopted
oF1 oFe1 oLe0 0 when relative motions between cables and supports are
ˆ kc …Dxe2 Dxe1 † ‡ kg DLe0 allowed. A cable segment between two adjacent ®xed
DFe2 ˆ DFe1 wDLe0 ˆ kc …Dxe2 Dxe1 † …kg ‡ w†DLe0 supports is independent of other cable segments, and is
analyzed separately using the method presented in this
…6†
section. Therefore, unless otherwise stated, all interme-
The above equations are written in one matrix equation diate supports are assumed as pulley supports. The
as: friction between the cable and intermediate supports is
neglected so that the cable moves freely on supports.
DFec ˆ Kec Dxe ‡ Keg DLe0 …7† The global equilibrium equation of the cable is ob-
tained by using a standard assembling procedure of the
where DFec ˆ …DFe1 ; DFe2 †, Dxe ˆ …Dxe1 ; Dxe2 † and ®nite element method (FEM) with the element equili-
   
kc kc kg brium equation in Eq. (7):
Kec ˆ ; Keg ˆ : X X
kc kc kg w
DFc ˆ Kec Dxe ‡ Keg Dle0 ˆ Kc Dx ‡ Kg DL0 …8†
e e
Eq. (7) represents the linearized equilibrium equation of
the proposed elastic catenary cable element. P
where e is the assembly operator of the FEM, and
It is worthwhile to mention that the nodal coordinate DFc , Dx and DL0 represent the increments of the struc-
increments in Eq. (7) do not represent changes in spatial tural resistance forces, the nodal coordinates and the
coordinates of a ®xed material particle caused by ex- unstrained lengths of all cable elements, respectively.
ternal loads. Rather, they denote iterational changes in The global incremental equilibrium equation is given as:
nodal coordinates of the equilibrium con®guration. The
displacement of a structure is de®ned as the changes of DPc ˆ Pc Fkc ˆ Kc Dx ‡ Kg DL0 …9†
spatial coordinates occupied by a ®xed material particle
from a reference con®guration, for which the stress-free, where DPc , Pc and Fkc denote the unbalanced force, the
undeformed con®guration of a structure is commonly applied nodal force and the structural resistance force
used. However, there does not exist such a ®xed refer- obtained at the previous iteration, respectively, and su-
ence con®guration with which the displacement is as- perscript k denotes the iteration count for the equilib-
sociated for the TCUD of a cable structure. The nodal rium iteration (k-iteration).
coordinates in Eq. (7) are absolute spatial positions The incremental equilibrium equation given in Eq.
of the nodes in element e under an equilibrium state. (9) cannot be solved for increments of the nodal coor-
Therefore, Eq. (7) is not a usual sti€ness equation, which dinates and the unstrained element lengths since the
relates displacements of structures to applied external number of equations is smaller than that of the un-
forces. knowns. This is because two equilibrium equations are
de®ned at each node while not only the coordinates of
2.2. TCUD analysis of a single cable each node but also the unstrained length of each element
is included in the unknowns. Therefore, additional
Fig. 3 shows a single cable subjected to its self-weight equations of which the number is equal to that of cable
and concentrated vertical loads at some discrete points elements in a ®nite element model should be supplied to
solve the incremental equilibrium equation.
Either x- or y-coordinates of concentrated loads (but
not both), which are speci®ed in the TCUD based on
design criteria and/or functional requirements of the
structure under consideration, provide the additional
information to solve Eq. (9). Since, however, one cable
element is used between adjacent concentrated loads, the
number of elements is always larger than that of external
Fig. 3. A single cable with intermediate supports. concentrated loads by one. Therefore, one further piece
 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692
of information is needed in addition to the speci®ed
locations of the concentrated loads. This additional
information can be supplied by specifying both x- and
y-coordinates of a node. In a suspension bridge, for
example, the predetermined magnitude of the sag at
the center span can be utilized as a part of the additional
information. Since geometric requirements of cable
structures vary with structural types, a speci®c position
of a structure that can be speci®ed for the additional
information is dependent on problems. Details on the
additional information for suspension bridges and cable-
stayed bridges are presented in the next chapter.
The speci®ed components of nodal coordinates are
written as
xs ˆ x …
where xs and x represent the speci®ed components of the
nodal coordinates and the prescribed values by the
TCUD, respectively. By decomposing the nodal coor-
dinates into the unknown part, xu , and the speci®ed
part, xs , the incremental equilibrium equation can be
written as:
DPc ˆ Kuc Dxu ‡ Ksc Dxs ‡ Kg DL0 …
where Kuc and Ksu denote matrices that consist of the
column vectors of Kc associated with Dxu and Dxs , re-
spectively. Since the speci®ed components of the nodal
coordinates can always be enforced exactly in the in-
cremental equilibrium equation, Dxs is set to zero in Eq.
(11), and the ®nal form of the incremental equilibrium
equation becomes:
 u
Dx
DPc ˆ Kuc Dxu ‡ Kg DL0 ˆ …Kuc ; Kg †
DL0
ˆ Kcg DX …
In case the number of the nodal coordinates speci®ed by
the TCUD is exactly the same as that of the cable ele-
ments in the ®nite element model, the incremental
equilibrium equation can be solved with respect to the
unknown nodal coordinates and the unstrained element
lengths.
Once the solution of Eq. (12) is obtained, the nodal
coordinates and the unstrained element lengths are up-
dated accordingly for the next k-iteration:
xk‡1 ˆ xk ‡ Dx
…
Lk‡1
0 ˆ Lk0 ‡ DL0
The nodal forces of each cable element are updated by
solving Eq. (1) with the updated nodal coordinates and
the unstrained element length:
…xe2 †k‡1 …xe1 †k‡1 ˆ /e ……Fe1 †k‡1 ; …Le0 †k‡1 † …
2685
Since Eq. (14) is nonlinear with respect to …Fe1 †k‡1 , an
iterative procedure based on the Newton±Raphson
method is employed:
 e 1
o/p
…Fe1 †k‡1 e k‡1
p‡1 ˆ …F1 †p ‡ ……xe2 †k‡1 …xe1 †k‡1 /ep †
oFe1
…15†
where the subscript p denotes the iteration count of the
nodal force update procedure (p-iteration) for each cable
element and /ep ˆ /e ……Fe1 †k‡1 e k‡1
p ; …L0 † †. The starting value
for the iteration procedure de®ned in Eq. (15) may be
taken as …Fe1 †k‡1
0 ˆ …Fe1 †k . Substitution of the converged
solution of Eq. (15) into Eq. (3) yields the nodal force
vector at node 2 of element e. The structural resistance
10† forces are updated by assembling the converged element
nodal force vectors:
X
Fk‡1 ˆ …Fec †k‡1 …16†
c
e
The starting values of the nodal coordinates and the
unstrained element lengths for the equilibrium iteration
(k-iteration) may be computed by assuming reasonable
11† shapes of the cable, which satis®es speci®ed components
of the nodal coordinates. For example, the starting
shape of a cable between two adjacent supports can be
assumed as a parabola, which satis®es the magnitude
of the speci®ed sag [1,5,6]. Since the horizontal nodal
coordinates where the concentrated loads are applied
are speci®ed, the vertical coordinate corresponding to the
speci®ed horizontal coordinate of a node is computed by
use of the assumed parabola. In addition, the horizontal
nodal forces of cable elements are determined from the
parabolic assumption on the shape of a cable segment
[1,5,6]. The starting values of the vertical nodal force
and the unstrained length of each element are computed
12† by solving Eq. (1) iteratively with the aforementioned
nodal coordinates and the horizontal nodal forces.
The initial tension of a cable required at the time of
cable installation is obtained by analyzing the cable
loaded only with a self-weight separately by using a
simple ®nite element model. Since no external force is
applied to the cable at the time of cable installation, one
cable element is used between two adjacent supports in
the simple model. In case no intermediate support exists
in a cable, the initial tension of the cable is directly de-
termined by the iteration process de®ned in Eq. (15).
The incremental equilibrium equation of a cable with
intermediate supports between two ®xed supports be-
13†
comes:
^k ˆ K
F ^ c D^ ^ g DL
x‡K ^0 …17†
c
where the quantities with hats (^) represent the corre-
sponding quantities in the simple model. Since all nodes
are de®ned at the supports and their coordinates are
14† speci®ed, the increments of the nodal coordinates vanish
2686 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692

in Eq. (17). The total number of unknowns becomes
the number of elements in the simple model while the
equilibrium equation (17) is de®ned only at the inter-
mediate supports in the horizontal direction. Therefore,
one additional equation has to be supplied to solve Eq.
(17). Because the total unstrained length of the cable
obtained by the TCUD analysis should be the same as
that of the simple model, the following equation holds:
X deformations of the pylons are usually negligible, the
Lc ˆ L^e0 …18†
e
where Lc is the total unstrained length of the cable seg-
ment computed by the TCUD analysis. The incremental
form of Eqs. (17) and (18) are written in one matrix
equation as:
!  
^k
F ^
c ˆ Kg DL ^0 …19†
0 1
Here, 1 denotes a row vector that has unit values in all
the components. The initial tensions of the cables are
updated with the solution of Eq. (19) using the p-itera-
tion.
3. Analysis of target con®guration of cable-supported
bridges
sti€ness of the pylon should be included for the TCUD
analysis. When a pylon is designed so that no bending
moment is induced under dead loads, the bending sti€-
ness of the pylon has no e€ect on the TCUD analysis
and need not be included in the TCUD analysis. How-
ever, the bending sti€ness of the pylon should be con-
sidered to calculate the initial tensions of the main cable
at the time of the cable installation. Since the vertical
pylons can be considered as rigid supports in the vertical
direction. If the axial deformation of the pylons has to
be considered, the sti€ness of pylons may be taken into
account by replacing the pylons with equivalent vertical
springs. The coecient of the vertical spring may be
evaluated through a separate structural analysis of the
pylon.
Fig. 4 illustrates the analysis procedures of the
TCUD for an earth-anchored suspension bridge. The
analysis of the TCUD of an earth-anchored suspension
bridge is performed by using three separate steps: ana-
lysis of the deck, the main cable and the hangers. In the
®rst step, all the hangers are removed and replaced by
equivalent forces applied at the main cable and the deck
as shown in Fig. 4b. Since the replaced forces represent
vertical forces required to obtain the target pro®le of the
deck, the deck with the replaced nodal forces is me-
chanically equivalent to the deck of the target pro®le

This chapter presents the TCUD analyses for sus-

pension bridges and cable-stayed bridges by the incre-
mental equilibrium equation proposed in the previous
chapter. The geometry de®ned by the TCUD is utilized
to solve the incremental equilibrium equation.

3.1. Suspension bridges

A suspension bridge consists of four main structural

elements: main cable, hangers, pylons and deck. It is
assumed that all hangers are vertically installed so that
loads applied to the deck are transmitted to the main
cable as vertical concentrated loads under dead loads.
Since the tensions of hangers are the only concentrated
loads applied to the main cable, one cable element is
used between two adjacent hangers to discretize the
main cable. In the design stage of a suspension bridge,
the TCUD, which includes the magnitude of main cable
sag, the heights of pylons, the pro®le of deck and the
locations of hangers, are determined by a designer's
experiences and/or the functional requirements of the
bridge. The geometric characteristics of the bridge speci-
®ed by the TCUD are used as the additional equations
for solving the equilibrium equation.
The ®xed condition is employed at the top of the
pylons because the main cable is usually ®xed at the
saddles after cable installation. In a general sense, in
case the main cable is ®xed at the saddle, the bending Fig. 4. TCUD analysis of an earth-anchored suspension bridge.
 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692
with roller supports at the anchoring points of the
hangers (Fig. 4c). Vertical reactions of the replaced
roller supports represent the hanger tensions. The
equivalent deck with the roller supports is analyzed by a
usual sti€ness method based on the structural type of the
deck:
Pd ˆ Kd ud …20†
where Pd , Kd and ud are the equivalent nodal load vec-
tor, the sti€ness matrix and the nodal displacement
vector of the deck with the replaced roller supports,
respectively. The reactions of the replaced supports, Rd ,
are easily computed by the nodal displacements ob-
tained by solving Eq. (20). The design of hangers, in-
cluding the number of hangers and hanger locations,
may be adjusted in case the assumed con®guration of
hangers yields excessive internal forces in the deck.
The incremental formulation proposed in the previ-
ous chapter is utilized in the second step of the analysis
of the main cable. The reaction forces computed in the
®rst step are applied in the opposite direction at the
hanger locations of the main cable:
Pvc ˆ Rd …21†
where Pvc represents the vertical components of the no-
dal forces applied to the main cable. The horizontal
components of the nodal forces applied to the main
cable are usually zero under dead loads. The starting
values for the equilibrium iteration (k-iteration) are de-
termined by the method described in Section 2.2.
The side spans and the main span can be analyzed
separately as the main cable is assumed to be ®xed at
the saddles. The horizontal positions of hangers and
the pylons are the speci®ed nodal coordinates by the
TCUD, and are utilized to solve Eq. (12). For the main
span, the magnitude of the speci®ed sag is also utilized
for the additional information. Since the tensions of the
main cable at the saddles are obtained by the TCUD
analysis of the main span, the horizontal components
of the cable tensions of the side spans at the saddles
are readily calculated. For the side spans, therefore, the
horizontal equilibrium equations at the saddles can be
included in Eq. (12), and the horizontal locations of the
pylons serve as the additional information together with
the horizontal positions of the hangers.
In the third step, the initial length of the hanger at-
tached at node i of the main cable, Lih , is determined by
using the converged vertical coordinate of node i in the
second step, yci , and the tension of the hanger computed
as the reaction force in the ®rst step:
…yci ydi †
Lih ˆ …22†
1 ‡ Ri =EAi
where EAi and Ri are the axial rigidity of the hanger and
the reaction force of the roller support replacing the
2687
hanger, respectively, and ydi is the speci®ed vertical co-
ordinate of the deck where the hanger is anchored.
In a self-anchored suspension bridge, the tensions of
the main cable cause compression forces in the deck of
the bridge. Since the bending sti€ness of the deck de-
creases due to the compression forces, the whole struc-
tural system of a self-anchored suspension bridge should
be analyzed simultaneously by a similar procedure pre-
sented in the next section.
3.2. Cable-stayed bridges
In a cable-stayed bridge, the tensions in stay cables
cause lateral displacements and compressions in deck
and pylons. Since the tensions of the stay cables are very
sensitive to small changes of geometry, the displace-
ments of the deck and the pylons should be considered.
Furthermore, the e€ect of the compression forces on the
bending sti€ness of the deck and the pylons have to be
taken into account [9]. Therefore, unlike the earth-an-
chored suspension bridge, the whole structural system,
including stay cables, deck and pylons is analyzed si-
multaneously.
The deck and the pylons are modeled using the beam-
column element. In case a truss-type deck is used, the
nonlinear truss model may be employed. Since no ex-
ternal force except the self-weight is applied to the stay
cables, one cable element is sucient to model a stay
cable. By replacing the stay cables with the nodal forces
as shown in Fig. 5, the incremental sti€ness equation of
the cable-stayed bridge is given as:
Pp Fc ˆ Fkp ‡ Kp Dup …23†
where Pp , Fkp , Kp and up represent the equivalent nodal
forces, the structural resistance forces at the previous
iteration, the tangential sti€ness matrix and nodal de-
grees of freedom of the deck and the pylons, respec-
tively. The vector, Fc , denotes the tensions of the stay
cables rearranged according to the total degrees of
freedom in the bridge. For the convenience of further
derivations, the degrees of freedom that are not associa-
ted with the stay cables are eliminated by static con-
densation:
ep
P ek ‡ K
Fc ˆ F e p Duc …24†
p
where the quantities with tildes () denote correspond-
ing quantities modi®ed by static condensation, and Fc
Fig. 5. TCUD analysis of a cable-stayed bridge.
2688 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692
and uc are the nodal forces of the stay cables and nodal
degrees of freedoms associated with stay cables, re-
spectively.
The ®nal nodal positions of the stay cables are given
by the initial coordinates of the anchoring points before
deformation, xc , and the displacements of the deck and
the pylons:
xc ˆ xc ‡ uc …
The nodal forces of the stay cables are given by Eq. (8):
Fc ˆ Fkc ‡ Kc Dxc ‡ Kg DL0 …
Since xc is speci®ed, the increment of xc simply becomes
that of uc . Substituting Eq. (26) into Eq. (24) leads to the
following incremental equilibrium equation for a cable-
stayed bridge:
ep
P Fkc e k ˆ …K
F e p ‡ Kc †Duc ‡ Kg DL0 …
p
The additional equations used to solve Eq. (27) are
supplied by the target pro®le of the deck under dead
loads because the vertical coordinates of the anchoring
locations of the stay cables at the deck are speci®ed by
the TCUD. By selecting the initial vertical coordinates
of the anchoring locations of the deck as the speci®ed
values in Eq. (25), the vertical displacements of the an-
choring points become zero. Therefore, the increments
of vertical displacements at the anchoring points of the
deck in Eq. (27) become zero, which reduces the number
of unknowns in Eq. (27) by the number of stay cables.
In some cable-stayed bridges, the outermost backstay
cables are anchored directly to the outer supports or
anchor blocks to reduce the bending moments of the
pylons by balancing the horizontal forces applied to the
pylons. The vertical coordinates of the anchoring points
of the outermost backstay cables are unable to supply
additional equations since they are already included in
the equilibrium equation (23) to specify the locations of
the outer supports. In this case, the horizontal positions
of the pylon tops determined by a designer to minimize
the bending moments of the pylons are used as the ad-
ditional equations.
At the end of each k-iteration, the unstrained length
and the tension of each stay cable are updated by
the procedure presented in the previous chapter. The
structural resistance forces of the deck and the pylons
are easily updated using the element sti€ness matrix used
to form Eq. (23).
The method presented in Section 2.2 is used to de-
termine the starting values for the k-iteration. For cable-
stayed bridges, however, the vertical nodal force of each
stay cable is assumed. The starting value of the vertical
nodal force of each stay cable is computed by employing
the equivalent deck approach presented for suspension
bridges in the previous section. For a backstay cable
anchored to an outer support of the deck, the vertical
nodal force cannot be computed by the equivalent deck
approach. In this case, the horizontal nodal force of the
cable that balances with the sum of the horizontal nodal
forces of the other stay cables anchored to the same
pylon is assumed.
25† 4. Examples
The TCUD analyses of a suspension bridge and a
cable-stayed bridge are presented to demonstrate the
26†
validity and the e€ectiveness of the proposed method.
The convergence criterion of the k-iteration for the ex-
amples is selected as follows:
kDxk k=kxk‡1 x0 k ‡ kDLk0 k=kLk‡1
0 k 6 10
10
…28†
27† where x0 denotes the starting values of nodal coordi-
nates. Eq. (28) is a very tight convergence criterion,
which is dicult to achieve by methods other than the
Newton±Raphson method.
4.1. The Great Belt suspension bridge
The Great Belt suspension bridge in Denmark is se-
lected as the ®rst example. The lengths of the main and
side spans are 1624 and 535 m, respectively. The cable
sag in the main span is 180 m. The main cable is directly
anchored to the bridge deck at the sag point of the main
span. The detailed geometry of the bridge is described in
Fig. 6. The material and sectional properties of main
cables, hangers, deck and pylons are given in Table 1.
The structural model used in this study mostly fol-
lows Karoumi's model [2], in which every third hanger
from the original bridge is included. Karoumi also as-
sumed that the self-weights of the hangers are distri-
buted uniformly along the main cable. The target pro®le
of the deck is straight without camber. The horizon-
tal positions of the pylon tops are selected so that no
bending moment is induced under dead loads. The main
Fig. 6. Geometry and support conditions of the Great Belt
suspension bridge (example 1).
 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692 2689

Table 1
Material and sectional properties of the Great Belt suspension
bridge [2]
Member E A (m2 ) I (m4 ) w
(GPa) (KN/m)
Main span cable 210 0.40 ± 32.9
Side spans cable 210 0.41 ± 33.8
Hanger 210 0.025 ± ±
Deck 210 0.50 1.66 72.4
Pylon (0±75.5 m) 40 37.5 750 882.0
Pylon (75.5±136.2 m) 40 32.5 275 764.4
Pylon (136.2±196.9 m) 40 30.0 200 705.6
Pylon (196.9±257.6 m) 40 25.0 150 588.0

cable is discretized with 40 elastic catenary elements (8

in each side span and 24 in the main span) proposed
in Section 2. The deck and the pylons are modeled with
40 Hermitian beam elements and 42 beam-column ele-
ments, respectively. The pylons are included in the ®nite
element model to analyze the con®guration after the
cable installation. Otherwise, the pylons can be modeled Fig. 8. Tensions of hangers.
by ®xed supports or vertical springs located at the pylon
tops. Two end supports and two intermediate supports
replaced roller supports in the equivalent deck. The
of the deck are assumed as pinned supports and roller
tensions of hangers are almost uniform except those
supports, respectively. The ®xed conditions are assumed
near the outer supports. Since a hanger in the ®nite ele-
at the saddles. The dead loads of the deck transmitted to
ment model represents three hangers in the real bridge,
the pylons are considered as external loads applied to
hangers carry tensions of around 1.6 MN.
the pylons, which are determined as support reactions
The results of the TCUD analysis are summarized in
from the analysis of the equivalent deck.
Table 2 along with those of the analysis without deck.
The proposed method is converged to the speci®ed
The unstrained lengths of main cable for the main and
criterion after four equilibrium iterations, and exhibits a
the side span are computed as 1671.74 and 564.78 m,
quadratic convergence as shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 8 shows
respectively, by the proposed method while Karoumi's
the tensions of hangers computed as the reactions of the
results [2] are 1672.7 and 564.8 m for the corresponding

Table 2
Results of the TCUD analysis of the Great Belt suspension
bridge
Quantity TCUD Self-weight of
main cable
Sag (m) 180.00 171.75

Unstrained length of main cable (m)

Side 564.78 564.78
Main 1671.74 1671.74
Elongation of main cable (m)
Side 1.35 0.46
Main 3.98 1.32
Disp. of the pylon top (cm)
x 0 82 !
y 5# 3#
Horizontal component of the main cable tension (MN)
Side 194 66
Main 194 64

Fig. 7. Convergence of the proposed method. Tension at the anchor (MN) 198 68
2690 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692

spans. The target sag of the main span cable and the Table 3
horizontal positions of the pylon tops are satis®ed ex- Material and sectional properties of the fan type cable-stayed
actly by the proposed method. Karoumi calculated the bridge [7]
main span cable sag as 180.09 m and displacement at Member E A (m2 ) I (m4 ) w
each pylon top as 4 cm, which are a little o€ from the (GPa) (KN/m)
target con®guration. The main cable sag and the hori- Exterior cable 207 0.042 ± 3.2
zontal displacement of a pylon top without deck are Interior cable 207 0.016 ± 1.2
estimated as 171.75 m and 82 cm, respectively, in the Deck 207 0.320 1.131 87.5
current study, and as 173 m and 85 cm, respectively, in Pylon (0.0±20.3 m) 207 0.269 0.432 ±
Karoumi's study. The aforementioned horizontal dis- Pylon (20.3±40.6 m) 207 0.228 0.345 ±
placement at the pylon top should be enforced at the Pylon (40.6±61.0 m) 207 0.203 0.211 ±
time of the cable installation to obtain the TCUD [2].
Karoumi's results seem to be very accurate, and
agree well with those of the current study even though by one elastic catenary cable, and the deck and the
Karoumi adopted the trial-and-error approach. To ob- pylons are discretized with 14 and 6 beam-column ele-
tain such accurate results with the trial-and-error ap- ments, respectively.
proach, deeper insights on the bridge based on an Two outermost backstay cables transmit the unbal-
engineer's experience are mandatory. Despite the fact anced horizontal forces at the pylon tops to the outer
that the total unstrained length of the main cable can be supports. The undeformed locations of the pylon tops
assumed accurately to some extent by the trial-and-error are selected as the target horizontal locations so that no
approach, the unstrained length of an individual ele- horizontal displacements are induced in the pylons un-
ment, which is required to attach hangers to the main der dead loads. The target pro®le of the deck is assumed
cable, cannot be determined accurately. On the other to be straight without camber, and prescribes the verti-
hand, the proposed method is capable of determining cal coordinates of anchoring locations of the stay cables
every physical quantity needed for the design of a sus- at the deck.
pension bridge based on the TCUD regardless of a de- The convergence to the speci®ed criterion is achieved
signer's experiences and/or subjective decisions. by using ®ve equilibrium iterations in the present study
while 20 equilibrium iterations (®ve equilibrium itera-
tions in each of the 4 shape iterations) are required in
Wang's study to converge to 10 4 order, which is a much
4.2. Fan type cable-stayed bridge
looser criterion than that used in this study. The qua-
dratic convergence rate is obtained by the proposed
The TCUD analysis of a symmetric fan type cable-
method as shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 10 shows the pro®les of
stayed bridge is performed by the proposed method.
Wang et al. [7], adopted the equivalent elastic modulus
approach [1,3] in modeling the stay cables and analyzed
the TCUD of the bridge by using the successive substi-
tution method. Results of the current study are com-
pared with their results. The total span length of the
bridge is 610 m, and the height of the pylons over the
deck is 61 m. The pylons are rigidly ®xed at the supports
and six stay cables are attached at the top of each pylon.
The anchoring points of the stay cables at the deck are
equally spaced. The detailed geometry of the bridge and
the ®nite element model are shown in Fig. 9. The ma-
terial and sectional properties of stay cables, deck and
pylons are shown in Table 3. Each stay cable is modeled

Fig. 9. Geometry and support conditions of a fan type cable-

stayed bridge (example 2). Fig. 10. Pro®le of the deck.
 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692 2691

the deck obtained by the present study and Wang's the equivalent deck of the target pro®le is also illustrated
study [7]. Since the target pro®le is not de®ned at the for comparison purposes in Fig. 11.
center of the main span, the center of the main span
de¯ects downward. The present study exactly repro-
duces the target pro®le of the deck, while Wang's study 5. Summary and conclusions
yields an inaccurate pro®le. The magnitudes of devia-
tions from the target pro®le of the deck in Wang's study This paper presents an approach based on the
seem to be insigni®cant compared to the span length of Newton±Raphson method for analyzing the TCUD of
the deck. However, the tensions of the stay cables used cable-supported structures. A new class of the elastic
by Wang's study are considerably di€erent from those of catenary element, which includes the nodal coordinates
the present study, especially in the main span as shown and the unstrained length as unknowns, is derived using
in Table 4. This is because even small di€erences in the the analytical solution of an elastic catenary cable. The
cable length cause signi®cant di€erence in the tension of geometric information speci®ed by the TCUD is utilized
a cable. Furthermore, an inaccurate estimation on the for solving the incremental equilibrium equation of a
cable tensions results in an inaccurate estimation on the cable formed by the proposed element, which has more
bending moment in the main span of the deck in Wang's unknowns than equations.
study as shown in Fig. 11. The moment distribution of The procedures for analyzing the TCUD for sus-
pension and cable-stayed bridges are presented in detail
using the incremental equilibrium equation of a cable
Table 4 proposed in this paper. The TCUD of a suspension
Tensions of the stay cables at the anchoring locations of the bridge is obtained by analyzing the deck, the main cable
deck in example 2 and the hangers separately. In case of cable-stayed
Cable no. Present study Wang's study Di€erence bridges, the whole structural system, including stay ca-
(MN) (MN) (%) bles, deck, and pylons are analyzed simultaneously for
considering the e€ect of the displacements of deck and
1 11.38 10.73 5.7
2 8.26 8.26 0.0
pylons on the tensions of stay cables and the e€ect of
3 4.85 4.79 1.2 compressive forces on the bending sti€ness of deck and
4 5.11 4.55 11.0 pylons.
5 6.79 7.81 15.0 Two examples are presented for demonstrating the
6 12.55 11.30 10.0 validity and e€ectiveness of the proposed method in
comparison to other methods. The proposed method
yields the quadratic convergence rate and the solution
that exactly satis®es the equilibrium equation and the
TCUD of a cable-supported structure.
It is believed that the proposed method provides a
powerful engineering tool in the design of cable-sup-
ported structures. The proposed method yields an ac-
curate solution for a TCUD analysis without any
subjective decision and/or assumption. Although only
the two-dimensional formulation is presented in this
paper, the proposed method can be easily extended to
the three-dimensional problems without the modi®-
cation of the basic formulation and applied to the other
types of cable structures such as mooring cables, cable
networks, power transmission lines, etc.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Brain Korea 21

Project.

Appendix A

The detailed form of each term in Eq. (4) is de®ned

Fig. 11. Bending moment of the deck. as:
2692 K.-S. Kim, H.S. Lee / Computers and Structures 79 (2001) 2681±2692
  q
o/ex Le0 1 Fy ‡ wLe0 ‡ T2 T1 ˆ kFe1 k ˆ Fx2 ‡ Fy2 and T2 ˆ kFe2 k
ˆ ln
oFx EA w Fy ‡ T1 q
 
Fx2 1 1 ˆ Fx2 ‡ …Fy ‡ wLe0 †2 :
w T2 …Fy ‡ wLe0 ‡ T2 † T1 …Fy ‡ T1 †

 
o/ex Fx 1 1 References
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oFy w T2 T1
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