Vietnam – Japan Science and Technology Symposium (VJST2019)
Structural Response of Cable Stayed Bridge Induced by Cable
Corrosion
Nguyen T. Cuong, Nguyen D. Thang, Ho T. Hien and Dao M. Thu

Abstract - Since the development of erection techniques
and construction materials, we have witnessed the rapid
bloom of cable-supported bridges all over the world. The
performance of such structures greatly depends on their
cable systems which are prone to corrosion. Many cases in
which cables have suffered from corrosion have been
recorded worldwide, especially in areas exposed to
airborne salt. However, in some countries, for instance,
Vietnam and China, efficient solutions to directly detect
cable corrosion are yet to be achieved. This study aims to
investigate the impacts of corroded cable cross-section
area on the structural behaviors of a particular
cable-stayed bridge by analyzing it under different virtual
corrosion scenarios. These results can later be used to
diagnose the corrosion condition in cables. This plays an
important role in bridge health monitoring as it enables
bridge owners to efficiently operate bridge structures
with sufficient data and under budget constraint.
I. INTRODUCTION
Along with the rapid development of cable-supported
bridge structures in the world, Vietnam has witnessed a
major increase in number of cable-stayed bridges in the
past 2 decades. Most of bridges in Vietnam are still in the
beginning of their life spans. However, signs of
degradation have been recorded in quite a lot of structures
such as My Thuan Bridge and Kien Bridge [1], [2].
According to the 4th Joint Workshop on Maintenance of
Pre-stressed Concrete Bridges held in Hanoi (17/09/2013),
it has been reported that one of the main factors which
caused bridge structures to degrade was corrosion by
coastal environment. In fact, many cases in which
corrosion has impacted badly on bridge structures,
especially cable-supported bridges have been recorded on
all over the world.
Even though cable protection systems are designed and
applied to minimize the damage caused by corrosion,
corrosion can occur both on the surface and inside the
Nguyen T. Cuong was with the Department of Bridge and
Highway Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology
(phone: +84-932-189-929; e-mail: 81300475@ hcmut.edu.vn).
Nguyen D. Thang and Ho T. Hien are with the Faculty of Civil
Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (e-mail:
ndthang@hcmut.edu.vn, hothuhien@hcmut.edu.vn).
Dao M. Thu was with the Department of Bridge and Highway
Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (e-mail:
81304046@hcmut.edu.vn)
cables [3]. Surface corrosion tends to appear at the position
where cracks of sheath take place. Given that these cracks
are not repaired, corrosion will soon expand and travel
deep inside the cables. The direct consequence of this
process is loss in cable effective cross-section area, rupture
of wires and decrease in load-bearing capacity of structure
in the whole. In many recorded cases in China,
cable-supported bridges lost theirs serviceability even
before rupture of cable took place [4]. In the past 20 years,
more than 16 cable-stayed bridges have gone through
cable replacement, many of which were still in good
condition [5]. This shows that there has been an
inefficiency in the maintenance of bridges. Therefore,
research on impacts on cable-supported bridges caused by
corrosion is necessary to operate bridges efficiently.
Research on corrosion tends to be divided into 2
themes:
- The first theme is to study the nature of the corrosion
process. These researches focus on how corrosion takes
place, developing corrosion forecast model based on
environmental parameters.
- The second theme is to study the behavior of
structures under the impacts of corrosion using modelling
and different hypothesized corrosion scenarios.
This research follows the second theme. Results
obtained from the research can be used to diagnose the
structure's health.
II. DEGRADATION OF CABLE-STAYED BRIDGES
Cable-stayed bridges are often exposed to highly
corrosive environment. Therefore, corrosion has a great
impact on such structures, especially the cable system of
cable-stayed bridges.
In Japan, under the influence of coastal atmosphere,
corrosion is the most common type of degradation.
According to statistic data collected from 1996 to 2006,
corrosion caused of 51.8% of steel bridges in Japan to be
demolished [6].
In 2011, The Federal Highway Administration
published list of structurally deficient bridges in its annual
report. These data were later analyzed by NACE [7].
Result from the analysis showed that most of structurally
deficient bridges were located in region known as the "rust
 Vietnam – Japan Science and Technology Symposium (VJST2019)

belt". In this region, wide use of deicers caused bridges to reliability of the model was tested and proven by deflection
be corroded although they were far from coastal zone. data of central span under HL-93 wheel load in
Serviceability Limit State according to the current Vietnam
In China, between 2000 and 2015, 22 cable-stayed
Bridge Design Specifications (Table II).
bridges with central span of over 400m have been
constructed [8]. Degradation has occurred in many of
them. Fatigue failure in steel deck, damage of movement TABLE I. MATERIALS USED FOR CAO LANH BRIDGE [10]
joint and corrosion in cable in severe environment are the Material Modulus of
most common cases [4]. Specification
strength (MPa) elasticity (MPa)
Edge girders,
f’c = 50
cross beams,
Concrete (Compressive 35750
III. THE RELATION BETWEEN CABLE STIFFNESS deck, pylons,
strength)
tie-down piers
AND THE STRUCTURAL BEHAVIORS OF BRIDGES [9]
Reinforcement CB400-V Fy = 400 200000
Stress - strain state of each element in the structure Fpu = 1860
Pre-stressing strands 195000
system can be determined by nodal displacement obtained (Tensile strength)
from these differential equations below: Cables
Fpu = 1860
195000
(Tensile strength)
(1)
(2)
(3)
The frequency omega of a structure can be obtained
from the equation below:
(4)
In which:
M – Elemental mass matrix
K – Stiffness matrix
U – Nodal displacement matrix Figure 1. Midas Civil model of Cao Lanh Bridge
P – Nodal force matrix
D – Elasticity matrix
δ – Stress matrix
ε – Strain matrix
ω – Angular velocity
As a result, stiffness of each element is essential to
determine how internal forces are distributed in the
structure. Once the effective area of cable decreases, the
whole structure will experience a re-distribution of internal
forces. Therefore, displacement, stress and strain of each
element will change accordingly. Figure 2. Cross section of main girder-deck system

TABLE II. DEFLECTION AT THE CENTER OF MID-SPAN - COMPARISON

BETWEEN MODEL AND DESIGN REPORT
IV. IMPACTS OF CABLE CORROSION ON
CABLE-STAYED BRIDGE STRUCTURES FEA model
Official detailed design report
[10]
Differentiation (%)

A. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) model 0.261m 0.263m -0.8%

The object of this study is Cao Lanh Bridge (Dong

Thap province). The bridge is 650m total in length with
central span of 350m. It has 2-plane cable system with 128
cables (Figure 5). Main girders of Cao Lanh Bridge are
pre-stressed concrete 2-edge-girder-deck integrated
system (Figure 6). Towers are concrete H frames.
Table I shows materials used in the construction of Cao
Lanh Bridge and their properties.
Analysis was carried out based on FEA model of Cao
Lanh Bridge developed using Midas Civil software. The
B. Assumptions
These assumptions are adopted to simplify calculation:
- Results are obtained from linear analysis.
- Damages occur in cable system only.
- Regarding the same environment and maintenance
condition, cables should be corroded equally [11]. In
this study, cross-section area of each cable is assumed
to decrease from 10% to 90%. Analysis is then carried
 Vietnam – Japan Science and Technology Symposium (VJST2019)

out to evaluate structural performance and to Figure 4. Concrete stress of extreme tensile fiber of girder at the center of
mid-span
determine danger thresholds.

C. Results and discussion Corroded area (%) 42.3

0
The very first failure mode concerning cable corrosion

Stress of extreme tensile fiber

0 10 20 30 40 50
is excessive deflection at the center of mid-span. Among -10000
investigated parameters, vertical deflection of mid-span is -18500
-20000
most sensitive to cable degradation. Fig. 3 shows that when -23900

(kN/m2)
cables are corroded by 7.3%, deck deflection at the center -30000 -30200
of mid-span exceeds the critical value, whereas deflection -40000 -37800
of side-span takes much longer to reach its critical value. In
fact, compared to side-span, deck excessive deflection of -50000 -47200
mid-span develops remarkably quickly once cable -60000 Stress -50000
degradation starts to take place. -59200
-70000 Concrete compressive strength

Figure 5. Concrete stress of extreme compressive fiber of girder at towers

3.5
Midspan deflection
3 Sidespan deflection Fig. 6 shows towers’ longitudinal displacement in
Vertical deflection (m)

different scenarios. In the most unfavorable case (90% of

2.5 cable area is corroded), relative longitudinal displacement
2 of tower top to tower height can reach approximately 2%
(Fig. 7).
1.5

1
0.4375
0.5 0.1875

0
0 7.3 20 40 53.0 60
Corroded area (%)

Figure 3. Vertical deflection of deck at the center of mid-span and

side-span

Regarding concrete stress in main girder, of all Figure 6. Longitudinal displacement of tower tops in Midas model
investigated scenarios, stress in the bottom fiber shows
dominant value in comparison with that of top fiber. The
most critical positions are at the towers and at the center of 2.5
displacement of tower tops (%)

mid-span. Fig. 4 shows that at the center of mid-span,

2.0
Relative longitudinal

cracks caused by tensile stress occur when 28% of cable

cross area is corroded. On the other hand, main girders at
1.5
the towers fail due to bottom fiber stress exceeding
concrete compressive strength when cable area decreases 1.0
by approximately 42% (Fig. 5).
6000
0.5
Stress
5000 4890 0.0
Stress of extreme tensile fiber

Concrete modulus of rupture

4455 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
4000
Corroded area (%)
(kN/m2)

3000 2970 Cao Lanh tower top Sa Dec tower top

2000
Figure 7. Relative longitudinal displacement of tower tops
1290
1000
For all cases, natural frequency in vertical direction
0
-193 tends to decrease as corroded cable area increases, but
0 10 20 27.7 30
-1000 under no circumstances does it exceed unallowable value
Corroded area (%) (Fig. 8).
 Vietnam – Japan Science and Technology Symposium (VJST2019)

[10] "Technical Detailed Design Report of Cao Lanh Bridge," Ho Chi Minh
, 2013.
2.15 [11] S. Miura, M. Murase, T. Okamoto, T. D. Dang and E. Iwasaki,
"Corrosion Behavior and Applicability of Weathering Steel in
UNALLOWABLE REGION
Vietnam," Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, vol. 29, no. 4,
Frequency (Hz)

1.65 2017.

1.15

0.65
0.35 0.34 0.32 0.31 0.29 0.28
0.26 0.23 0.21
0.17
0.15
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Corroded area (%)

Figure 8. Vibration frequency in vertical bending mode

V. CONCLUSION
Cable corrosion does have dramatic impacts on the
structure. Studying structural behaviors under the
influence of cable corrosion and combining a corrosion
rate forecasting model enable efficient methods to
diagnose condition of cables and at the same time and
reasonable periodic structure inspection schedule. In this
particular case of Cao Lanh Bridge, in all cases, the most
sensitive area is the mid-span. Therefore, structure health
monitoring system in mid-span should be thoroughly
arranged and monitored data of this area should also be
paid extra attention.

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