Summary:

1. Introduction
2. The development of cable – stayed bridges
3. Stayed Cables
4. Preliminary design of cable - stayed bridges
5. Construction of cable - stayed bridges
6. Example of typical cable
7. Future development

 Effective span: 100 to 1100m

Special advantages of cable stayed bridge:

- Bending moments are greatly reduced by the load transfer of the stay cables
- Negative live load moments may occur over the vertical bearings at the towers. They can be
avoided by supporting the beam by the stay cables only, including in the tower region.
- Large compression forces in the beam are caused by the horizontal components of the
inclined stay cables.
- The third main advantage lies in the fact that cable-stayed bridges are inherently stiffer than
suspension bridges. This is especially true for longitudinally eccentric loads, for which the
main cables of a suspension bridge find a new equilibrium without increase of cable stresses
(stressless deformations), whereas stay cables always have to be additionally stressed in
order to carry any load.
Cable arrangements:

The fan arrangement: All cable join at the tower head.

The harp arrangement: all cables run parallel and are anchored over the height of the tower.

In such way an intermediate cable arrangement between harp and fan is created, which should be as
close as possible to the fan arrangement due to its economical advantages.

The star arrangement: The early South Elbe River Bridge used a star-shaped cable arrangement for
which the few cables were separated at the towers in order to simplify their anchorages. Since the
stays are still anchored together at the beam, this solution was not repeated.

Homberg’s window: For open cross-sections with low torsional stiffness two outer cable planes are
required to carry eccentric live loads by a force couple. The high negative bending moments above
the tower piers can be carried by the box girder. This transfer of loads near the towers via shear and
bending directly into the foundations is more economic than supporting the beam only by the
cables.
Cable Stiffness:

The stiffness of cable-stayed bridges is governed by the stiffness of the stay cables, which is reduced
by the cable sag:

In order to achieve a high cable stiffness, a high cable stress is required.

Geometry:

Main spans

The governing factor for the span ratio is the stress in the backstay cables. For the cable size required
for the biggest backstay force with live load in the main span, the fatigue stress range for live load in
the main and side span should not exceed the permissible range.

Tower heights

Optimizations indicate that tower heights of about 1/5 of the main span above deck achieve
minimum costs for the whole bridge.

Stiff towers

If the geometrical conditions require two equal spans with only one tower at the center, the tower
height should be chosen so that the flattest cables have the usual inclination of about 27°. This gives
a ratio of tower height to each main span of about 0.5.

Support conditions:

Longitudinal

The longitudinal support conditions for the beams of cable-stayed bridges are determined by the
changes in lengths due to temperature, shrinkage and creep as well as longitudinal forces such as
braking, wind and earthquake.
Transverse

The governing load for cable-stayed bridges in the transverse direction is wind on the cables, the
towers and the beam.

Anchor piers:

At the anchor piers (hold-down piers) the uplift forces in the backstay cables from unbalanced loads
in the main span have to be anchored.

Tower shape:

Since towers are mainly loaded by compression, concrete towers are more economical and,
therefore, mainly used today. Only if extremely bad foundation conditions would require very long
piles, are the lighter steel towers used today.

2 outer cable planes

The beams of cable-stayed bridges should normally be supported at the outsides in order to restrain
the rotational deformations most effectively. This requires two cable planes, supported by two tower
legs.

1 central cable plane

Spread central cable planes

If a cable-stayed bridge has to carry outer roadway lanes and central railway tracks it can be
expedient to place the two tower legs in between the rail tracks and the roadway lanes. This results
in partially spread tower legs. The two cable planes are arranged parallel to the tower legs.

Beam cross sections:

Small cable distances result in small bending moments from the dead load in the beam. The live load
moments are mostly restraint moments which decrease with the depth of the beam. Therefore, it is
economic to choose a small depth for the beam, which is nearly independent of the span length. The
limiting condition is the safety against buckling of the beam. A further condition is to ascertain a
minimum deflection radius under concentrated loads.

1. Steel cross section

2 outer cable planes

Open cross section: For short to medium spans the torsion from eccentric live loads can be carried by
a couple in the outer cable planes.
Box girder: Long spans may require the use of a box girder even with two outer cable planes in order
to achieve the required torsional stiffness.

Separate beams: In order to provide the necessary space for the tower, two separate beams
connected by cross girders are used.

1 central cable plane:

A central cable plane requires a box girder cross-section in order to carry the torsional moments.

Spread central cable plane

Open cross section: For the two spread central cable planes at the Rhine River Bridge Mannheim-
Ludwigshafen two box girders provide the required torsional stiffness, and transverse bending is
carried by the cross girders. The area between the two boxes is used by two tramway tracks which
are lowered in one end region.
Box girder: The railway tracks in the center of the Sava River Bridge Ada Ciganlija, remain on top. The
two spread central cable planes are anchored at the outside of the central box. For introduction of
the cable forces into the 45 m wide beam additional webs are used.

Preliminary Design of cable stayed bridges

This is best achieved by outlining approximate methods for the preliminary design which leads to
initial dimensions of all structural parts which can then be used for the comparison of the quantities
for different systems, and as input values for a detailed computer calculation.

The geometry of cable-stayed bridges is determined by the ratio of side spans to main span and by
tower heights to main span. An important criterion in this regard is the required amount of cable
steel. The total costs comprise, in addition, those for beam, towers and hold-downs at the bridge
ends.

Loads in the main span are carried by the forestays to the tower heads and from there anchored by
tension via the concentrated backstays in the anchor piers. The inner stay cables of the side spans
receive virtually no forces at all from this loading. The horizontal cable components act in
compression in the beam and equal one another out. Loads in a side span are transmitted by the side
span cables to the tower head and from there via compression (meaning reduction of tensile forces
from permanent loads) in the backstays to the anchor piers where they cause compression. The
horizontal components of the side spans are balanced by those of the backstays by tension in the
side spans.

The span range also influences the size of the vertical uplift forces in the outer anchor piers. These
anchorage forces decrease with increasing span ratios. The compression created in the backstays by
live loads in the side spans decreases their tensile force from permanent loads increasingly with
increasing span ratios. In this way the effective cable stiffness decreases. Fig. 4.3 also gives formulas
for an approximate determination of the total amount of cable steel required.

Normal force of articulated system

The influence of beam and towers is comparatively small, often in the range of only 5 % of the total
deformations.

As mentioned before, live loads in the main span, Fig. 4.4 b, are transferred in tension from the
forestays into the backstays which are anchored in tension to the anchor or hold-down piers, where
the uplift forces are tied down to the foundations