Assessment of key response quantities for design of a cable-stayed bridge subjected to sudden loss of cable(s)

Stays of cable-stayed bridges have potential to lose their support instantly by extreme loadings such as earthquake, thunder strike, vehicle impact, wind and malicious attacks. The sudden loss of cable(s) provides unpredictable stress redistribution on the deck and towers, as well as the large deflections of the entire bridge. This phenomenon is the cause of one of the most critical situations for the cable-stayed bridges, termed “zipper-type collapse” (i.e. the mechanism of the progressive collapse by the redistribution of stresses). Considering such a sudden loss of cable in the design of a cable-stayed bridge is essential. Although cable loss scenarios are associated with material as well as geometrical nonlinearities, in design of cable-stayed bridges, such an extreme loading scenario is analysed typically by using linear elastic models. In this paper, a linear elastic 2D and a fully nonlinear 3D finite element model of an idealised steel cable-stayed bridge are developed and analysed to determine the effect of sudden loss of cable on the progressive collapse of the bridge at global and local stress levels. A parametric dynamic analysis for the bridge model with different cable loss scenarios under symmetrical or unsymmetrical load cases is investigated. The bridge model studied in this paper showed that the 2D model can adequately capture global behaviour of the bridge. The 3D model showed the most significant stress concentration occurring under the symmetrical case are limited to small areas and are negligible.