Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
By John A. Ochsendorf,1 Student Member, ASCE, and David P. Billington,2 Fellow, ASCE
ABSTRACT: This paper, summarizing the beginnings, analysis, and future of self-anchored suspension bridges,
examines the development of this unique bridge form, its uses over the past century, and its advantages and
disadvantages. The Konohana Bridge in Osaka, Japan, illustrates this type and provides a case study to compare
conventional suspension bridge theory with the results of a finite-element model. The final portion of the paper
evaluates the potential for self-anchored suspension bridge design, and provides recommendations for design
engineers. The goal here is to describe the structural behavior of self-anchored bridges in general, and of the
Konohana Bridge in particular.
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INTRODUCTION that the soil conditions would not be adequate for external
anchorages (Leonhardt 1984a). Chains composed of eyebars
Self-anchored suspension bridges differ from conventional provided for ease of anchoring to the stiffening girder. Engi-
suspension bridges because they do not require massive end neers around the world recognized the Cologne-Deutz Bridge
anchorages. Instead, the main cables are secured to each end as an innovative form, and for 15 years after its completion it
of the bridge deck, or stiffening girder, which carries the hor- influenced the design of other bridges. Specifically, the three
izontal component of cable tension. Therefore, the end sup- Allegheny River crossings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the
ports resist only the vertical component of tension, an advan- smaller Kiyosu Bridge in Tokyo, Japan, closely replicated the
tage where the site cannot easily accommodate external appearance of the Cologne-Deutz Bridge (Tajima and Sugi-
anchorages. yama 1991). It was destroyed in 1945, and a steel box girder
Because the stiffening girder supports the cable tension, the bridge exists today on the original abutments (Prade 1990).
girder must be placed before the main cable can be erected. The three nearly identical bridges constructed over the Al-
This construction sequence, the opposite of that of a conven- legheny River in Pittsburgh from 1925 to 1928 represent the
tional suspension bridge, limits the self-anchored form to mod- most important American application of the self-anchored
erate spans. Also unlike the conventional suspension form, the form. In evaluating the proposed Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth
self-anchored bridge analysis must include the influence of the Street crossings, the city art commission of Pittsburgh re-
large axial force in the deck. With these issues in mind, this quested a suspension form for aesthetic reasons. Inspired by
paper will discuss the historical development, structural anal-
ysis, and potential applications of this bridge form, and will
conclude with some reflections on recent self-anchored sus-
pension bridges.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
In the second half of the 19th century, Austrian engineer
Josef Langer and American engineer Charles Bender indepen-
dently conceived of the self-anchored suspension bridge (Mul-
lins 1936a). Langer first wrote of his idea in 1859, and Bender
staked his claim with a patent issued in 1867 (‘‘Patent’’ 1867).
Neither designer used continuous cables; instead, they an-
chored the main cables to the girder at the midspan as well as
at each end of the bridge. In 1870 Langer built a small self-
anchored bridge, in Poland, which carried train traffic, while
Bender apparently never constructed a self-anchored bridge.
Although these engineers did not directly influence future de- FIG. 1. Original 1915 Cologne-Deutz Bridge in Germany
signs, the self-anchored suspension bridge form became com- (Prade 1990)
mon in Germany in the beginning of the 20th century.
German engineers built the first large-scale, self-anchored
suspension bridge over the Rhine River at Cologne, Germany,
in 1915 (Mullins 1936b) (Fig. 1). This Cologne-Deutz Bridge
had a main span of 185 m and utilized temporary wooden
scaffolding to support the steel girders until the suspension
cables were in place (‘‘Le Nouveau’’ 1920). An art commis-
sion selected the suspension form for aesthetic reasons, and
engineers opted to self-anchor the suspension cables for fear
1
Grad. Student, Dept. of Civ. Engrg. and Operations Res., Princeton
Univ., Princeton, NJ 08544.
2
Gordon Y. S. Wu Professor, Dept. of Civ. Engrg. and Operations Res.,
Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ.
Note. Discussion open until January 1, 2000. To extend the closing
date one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Manager
of Journals. The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and
possible publication on March 23, 1998. This paper is part of the Journal
of Bridge Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 3, August, 1999. 䉷ASCE, ISSN
1084-0702/99/0003-0151–0156/$8.00 ⫹ $.50 per page. Paper No. 17921. FIG. 2. 1928 Seventh Street Bridge in Pittsburgh
the 1915 Rhine crossing at Cologne-Deutz, Pittsburgh engi- Following the Pittsburgh bridges of the 1920s, only two
neers chose to self-anchor the cables (‘‘Three’’ 1924). The other self-anchored suspension bridges appeared in the United
Pittsburgh crossings clearly imitated the Cologne-Deutz States: the 69-m span of 1933 over the Little Niangua River
Bridge by using eyebar chains for the main cables, arched in Missouri, and the 107-m span of 1939 over the Wabash
towers of nearly identical form, and continuous steel girders. River in Indiana (Gronquist 1941). German engineers contin-
A visual comparison of the Seventh Street Bridge (Fig. 2) with ued to construct self-anchored suspension bridges throughout
the Cologne-Deutz bridge (Fig. 1) shows these similarities. As the 1930s and 1940s, but cable-stayed bridges came to dom-
at Cologne, the Pittsburgh engineers cited poor conditions that inate postwar reconstruction. In 1954, German engineers com-
would not allow for external anchorages. pleted the last large-scale, self-anchored suspension bridge in
The Pittsburgh bridges have main spans of 131–135 m, Germany at Duisberg, with a span of 230 m (Prade 1990).
nearly 30% shorter than the Cologne-Deutz Bridge, and were In 1941, the 378-m span Cologne-Rodenkirchen Bridge, de-
constructed using a method of cantilever construction (Covell signed by Fritz Leonhardt, used conventional external anchor-
1926). Utilizing temporary compression struts between the ages to surpass the Cologne-Mülheim Bridge as the longest
eyebar chain and the stiffening girder, engineers cantilevered suspension bridge in Europe (Leonhardt 1984b). Leonhardt
sections of the bridge out from each support until the river continued to design longer suspension spans, and his efforts
was spanned and the suspension chains could be connected at culminated in the 1961 proposed design of a monocable sus-
the middle. This method of construction eliminated falsework pension bridge for the Rhine River crossing at Emmerich. Al-
in the navigation channel and represented a significant im- though never built, Leonhardt considered it his ‘‘most beau-
provement over the construction technique for the Cologne- tiful design’’ (Leonhardt 1984b). Thirty years later, Japanese
Deutz Bridge. Each Pittsburgh bridge took less than 15 months engineers successfully revived Leonhardt’s monocable ideas in
to build, and when the Sixth Street Bridge was opened in the 1990 Konohana Bridge of Osaka, Japan.
1928, it received the American Institute for Steel Construc-
tion’s first annual award for the most beautiful bridge (Plow- MODERN SELF-ANCHORED BRIDGES
den 1984). Although rehabilitated in 1995, all three continue
to function after 70 years in service (Stickel 1996). Completed in 1990, with a main span of 300 m, the Ko-
In Germany, four major suspension bridges over the Rhine nohana Bridge in Osaka is the first large-scale, self-anchored
River utilized the self-anchored form in the 25 years after the suspension bridge to be built for vehicular traffic since 1954,
completion of the Cologne-Deutz Bridge (Prade 1990). The and its innovative design suggests further consideration for the
most notable of the German self-anchored bridges was the self-anchored form (Fig. 4). In addition to its self-anchoring,
1929 Cologne-Mülheim Bridge, with a main span of 315 m, the Konohana Bridge is the first large-scale, monocable sus-
which was the longest suspension bridge in Europe when com- pension bridge, with the main cable and inclined hangers
pleted (Schleicher 1929) (Fig. 3). This bridge was the result aligned in a single vertical plane along the center of the road-
of a design competition in which a jury initially chose a steel way. The self-weight of 0.87 tons/m2 (170 psf) is considerably
arch bridge, from 38 entries, based largely on aesthetic con- less than typical 300-m spans, which can weigh between 1.0
siderations (Rein 1927). In 1927, the mayor of Cologne over- and 2.0 tons per square meter (200–400 psf) (Buchwalter, un-
turned the jury’s decision and ordered the design to be changed published, 1994). By increasing the sag:span ratio to 1:6, a
to a self-anchored suspension bridge, for fear that the poor soil value greater than most comparable suspension bridges, the
conditions would not support the thrust of an arch (Leonhardt designers reduced the axial force in the deck. The stiffening
1984a). Although destroyed in 1945 and rebuilt with external girder depth of 3.17 m, or 1/95 of the main span, gives the
anchorages, the original Cologne-Mülheim Bridge remains the
longest self-anchored span ever built.
Beginning in the 1930s, some engineers wrote favorably
about the self-anchored suspension bridge not for its absence
of anchorage blocks, but for its ease of analysis. Publications
in the United States (Gronquist 1941) and France (Baticle
1943) advocated the use of the elastic theory for the design of
self-anchored suspension bridges. By this period it was well
known that the deflection theory was necessary for accurate
analysis of suspension bridges, yet engineers theorized that the
axial compression in the girder would cause the self-anchored
bridge to behave according to the much simpler elastic theory
(Steinman 1929). This belief contributed to the construction
of several more self-anchored designs in Germany and the
United States during the 1930s. (For a more complete discus-
sion of the development of suspension-bridge analysis, see
Bounopane and Billington 1993.) FIG. 4. 1990 Konohana Bridge in Japan