• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.35-48
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• 2001

The objective of this study is to investigate the stability behavior of steel cable-stayed bridges by comparing the buckling loads obtained by means of finite element methods with eigen-solver. In recent days, cable-stayed bridges dramatically attract engineers' attention due to their structural characteristics and aesthetics. They require a number of design parameters and present a high degree of static indetermination, especially for long span bridges. Cable-stayed bridges exhibit several nonlinear behaviors concurrently under normal design loads due to the individual nonlinearity of substructures such as the pylons, stay cables, and bridge deck, and their interactions. The geometric nonlinearities arise mainly from large displacements of cables. Strong axial and lateral forces acting on the bridge deck and pylons cause structural nonlinear behaviors. The interaction is among the substructures. In this paper, a typical three-span steel cable-stayed bridge with a variety of design parameters has been investigated. The numerical results indicate that the design parameters such as the ratio of $L_1/L$ and $I_p/I_b$ are important for the structural behavior, where $L_1$ is the main span length, L is the total span length of the bridge, $I_p$ is the moment of inertia of the pylon, and $I_b$ is the moment of inertia of the bridge deck. When the ratio $I_p/I_b$ increases, the critical load decreases due to the lack of interaction among substructures. Cable arrangements and the height of pylon are another important factors for this type of bridge in buckling analysis. According to numerical results, the bridges supported by a pylon with harp-type cable arrangement have higher critical loads than the bridges supported by a pylon with fan-type cable arrangement. On contrary, the shape of the pylon does not significantly affect the critical load of this type of bridge. All numerical results have been non-dimensionalized and presented in both tabular and graphical forms.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.57-65
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• 2010

To determine the static buckling loads and evaluate the structural performance of slender steel pipe-arches such as for greenhouse structures, a series of modal tests using a fixed hammer and roving sensors was carried out, by providing no load, then a range of vertical loads, on an arch rib in several steps. More attention was given to an internal arch where vertical and horizontal auxiliary members are not placed, unlike an end arch. Modal parameters such as natural frequencies, mode shapes and damping ratios were extracted using more advanced system identification methods such as PolyMAX (Polyreference Least-Squares Complex Frequency Domain), and compared with those predicted by commercial FEA (Finite Element Analysis) software ANSYS for various conditions. A good correlation between them was achieved in an overall sense, however the reduction of natural frequencies due to the existence of preaxial loads was not apparent when the vertical load level was about up to 38% of its resistance. Some difficulties related to the field testing and parameter extraction for a very slender arch, as might arise from the influences of neighboring members, are carefully discussed.