3 3.

SUSPENSION BRIDGES Introduction History

Fig. Menai Bridge

It was reported by Needham[1] that The predecessor in outside of Europe China, Central and South America mastered how they build the suspension bridges. The Fanhe Brdige dated B.C. 206 in Shanxhi Province was probably made using iron chains. And also the Iron-Chain suspension bridge date from A.D. 65 was constructed in Ynnan Province in China; but records are not reliable as to who built these early bridges. The native Americans did , and still do, make intricate rope pathways, and perfected these with some ingenious ways of improving the tensile properties of vine ropes. By contrast with the earlier unknown builder of suspension bridges, the Tibetan Monk, Thang-stong rGyal-po may be the first renowned builder of iron chain bridges[2]. [2] H. Max. Irvine,1981. Cable Structures, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England The famous Brooklyn Bridge is probably the most remarkable suspension bridge of the 19th century

Fig. Brooklyn Bridge It was built during 1869-1883 in New York City across the East river between the boroughs of Manhattan and Broolkyn. The bridge has a center span of 486m and side spans of 286m, giving a total cable supported length of 1058m. The Brooklyn Bridge the first East River bridge- was the chief work of the bridge designer John. A, Roebling, who was born in Germany but emigrated to the United States of America at the age of 25. Before he started to design the his Booklyn Bridge construction, he had already designed the first Niagara Suspension Bridge with a main span of 250m, and the Cincinnati and Covington suspension Bridge over the Ohio River with a main span of 322m. The fatal bridge disaster of the suspension bridge across the Ohio River at Wheeling, which was destoyed by the wind in 1854, gave Roebling very strong impression on the Wind Effect, and he took several measures to increase the stiffness of suspension bridges beyond what is obtained by the cable itself. In his bridges, following the Wheeling disaster, he therefore introduced stiffening trusses with a considerable bending stiffness and stay-members to supplement the pure suspension system.

In the second half of the 19th century the first order theories were available to analyze the suspension bridges. In 1886, the first order or elastic theory was further developed by Maurice Levy. The trend to let the calculations influence the lay-out of the structure is clearly seen in the Williamsburg Bridge, the second bridge to span the East River in New York. This bridge was completed in 1903, some distance upstream form the Blooklyn Bridge. It has a main span of 488m. It is the first entirely made of steel. The designers strong desire to have a practicable mathematical model in the arrangement of the structural system led the stiffening trusses of the deck structures of Williamsburg bridge are exceptionally deep, and the open steel truss towers resemble high-voltage power linetowers rather than suspension bridge towers.

Fig. Williamsburg Bridge, New York City In 1909, between the Broolklyn and Williamsburg bridges the Manhattan Bridge was completed. It is painted blue and has a main span of 448m. In addition to vehicular traffic, the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges also convey metro rail traffic. This causes requirements with respect to the load carrying capacity of these bridges. In the evaluation of cable supported bridges the Mahattan Bridge is notable for the fact that it was the first major suspension bridge to be

analyzed by the so-called deflection theory which had been developed by Melan in Vienna in 1888. The deflection theory is a second order theory taking into account the displacements of the main cable under traffic load when calculating the bending moments in the stiffening girders. Fig. Manhattan Bridge After the opening the Manhattan Bridge little progress was made in the design of suspension bridges for a period of more than 20 years. Then in 1931 came a suspension bridge which almost doubled the free span of the previous bridges: With its main span of 1066m, the George Wahington Bridge across the Hudson river. This was the first bridge to overcome 1000m between towers. O.H. Ammann, the designer of George Wahington Bridge had panned from the beginning of his design to have two decks with roadway on the upper deck and subway tracks on the lower deck. The 1930s became a decade of great achievements in the field of suspension bridges in the United States of America: the George Washington bridge was followed by such impressive structures as the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge designed by L.S.Moisseiff, and the Golden gate Bridge designed by J.B.Strauss. The West Bay Crossing consists of twin suspension bridges placed end ot end with a separating anchor pier at the center.

Fig. San Fransisco West Bay Crossing Each of the two suspension bridges has a main span of 704m and side spans of 352m. The majestic Golden Gate Bridge is situated at the entrance of the San Fransisco Bay. The bridge was opened to traffic in May 1937. Its 1280m main span was longest in the world until 1964 before completion of the Verrazano Bridge. This bridge was made with only two main cables each 930mm in diameter, compared to the four main cables each 910mm in diameter used in the George Washinton Bridge. The stiffening truss of the Golden Gate Bridge represented an extreme in slenderness as the depth-to -span ratio was only 1:168. At the same time, the space truss comprised only three plane trusses, two vertical under the

cable planes and one horizontal below the bridge deck. This configuration resulted in an insignificant torsional stiffness of the truss section, but at the time when the Golden Gate Bridge was designed the importance of torsional stiffness for achieving aerodynamic stability was not fully appreciate. A few years later the extreme slenderness of the Golden Gate Bridge was surpassed several times by the Tacoma Narrow Bridge in Washington State, USA, opened to traffic on 1st July 1940. With a main span of 853m it then ranked as the 3rd in the world. This bridge had the stiffening girder made up of plate girders with a depth-to-span ratio of only 1:350. This extreme slenderness was actually the ultimate result of the designer L.S.Moisseiffs application of the deflection theory, which gave ever decreasing bending moments with reduced bending stiffness. Despite the extreme slenderness of the stiffening girder, the bridge possessed an adequate safety against the action of the traffic load and the static wind pressure. Besides the small depth-to-span ratio, the width-to span rationof 1:72 also went beyond previous practice. Right from its opening, the bridge had shown a tendency to oscillate in the wind, but during the first four months these oscillations were vertical, with no rotation of the cross section involved. And the oscillations were always damped down after having reached an amplitude of about 1.5m. Then, after a few months in service, following the breaking of some stabilizing cables which prevented mutual displacements between the stiffening girder and the main cables at mid-span, the type of oscillation suddenly changed. The oscillations then took the form of torsional movements with the main span oscillating asymmetrically in two segments with a nod e at mid-span. The torsional movements became mo9re and more violent with a tilting of the roadway at the quarter points from +45 -45 . After approximately one hour of these violent self-exited oscillations, caused by negative damping of the aerodynamic forces, the hangers began to break in fatigue at the sockets and a large portion of the stiffening girder fell into the water. During the final oscillations of the Tacoma Bridge the wind had a speed of 56-67km/h, which was well below the maximum wind speed the bridge had been designed to withstand.

After the Tacoma Bridge Disaster, aerodynamic studies became an important part of the design process for all suspension bridges to come and also suspension bridges already built were investigated to reveal if there was any danger of aerodynamic instability.

Fig. The first Tacoma Bridge

One of the bridge investigated was the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge in New York. This bridge, designed by O.H.Amman and opened to traffic in 1939, had as stiffening girder composed of two plate girders with a depth-tospan ration of 1:209. Oscillations had been observed on the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge but they were always of the non-catastophic vertical type and with small amplitudes. Nevertheless, in 1946 it was decided to strengthen the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge by adding a truss on top of the plate girders to double the depth of the stiffening girder, and by erecting stays from the pylon tops to the stiffening girder. And so Roeblings vision to combine the suspension system with stays to increase the resistance against oscillations was again adopted.

Fig. Bronx-Whitestone Bridge

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Cable

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3.3.2

Analysis Methods of Cables Analytic Method Catenary Cable Static Analysis Dynamic analysis Parabolic Cable Static Analysis Dynamic analysis Elastic Catenary Method Finite Element Method

4 4.1 4.2

Analysis Method of Suspension Bridges Analytic Method Finite Element Method