Nonlinear static solution of suspension bridge formulated from a surrogate model with secant stiffness of suspension cables

Explicit analytical solution may offer great convenience for the design and parametric study of suspension bridges. However, the nonlinear behavior of suspension cable exacerbates the difficulty of such theoretical derivation. Adopting secant stiffness is an effective way to deal with the nonlinearity of the cable, but the crux is how to find its deformed state under external loading. The strategy of this study is primarily targeted at a typically arranged three-span suspension bridge. It starts from formulating the basic form of nonlinear stiffness of suspension cables by setting the elastic stiffness and geometric stiffness in series, then a surrogate model is accordingly established with the nonlinear springs to replace the mid-span and side-span cables. The deformed state of the surrogate model subjected to the specified external load cases will be found by restricting and releasing its tower tops, and thus the analytical formula of the secant stiffness can be obtained. Consequently, the nonlinear static solution of suspension bridge, including force and deformation changes in the cables and towers, can be explicitly expressed with the secant stiffness. The general solution procedure can also be extended to multi-span suspension bridges. Finally, the nonlinear static solution is verified by numerical examples of a three-span suspension bridge and a four-span suspension bridge. The parametric analysis reveals that the nonlinearity of suspension bridge will become significant as the side-span to mid-span ratio increases, or when the side-span cables are hung with hangers.