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Composite steel-concrete cable-stayed bridges: Developments

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 Research and Applications in Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation – Zingoni (Ed.)
© 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-00061-2

Composite steel-concrete cable-stayed bridges: Developments

and future trends

J.J. Oliveira Pedro

Technical University of Lisbon, Civil Engineer – GRID, Consulting Engineers, Portugal

A.J. Reis
Technical University of Lisbon, Technical Director – GRID, Consulting Engineers, Portugal

ABSTRACT: Composite cable-stayed bridges are elegant and efficient solutions. Today, they are the most
adopted solution for 400–600 m span range. Design developments of composite cable-stayed decks are resumed.
Particular reference is made to medium-span road and railroad composite decks and to truss decks. Slenderness
of the decks, material quantities of stays cables and decks are referred to. Future trends of composite cable-
stayed bridges are at last discussed. Particular reference is made to the prospective developments in the field of
structural materials, cables, and bridge concepts.

1 DESIGN DEVELOPMENTS floor-beams provided support for a slender and lighter

Cable-stayed structures are elegant and efficient solu-
tions for bridges. In the last fifty years the range of
these bridges has been steadily increasing and today
they are the mostly adopted solution for medium and
long-spans, reaching 1000–1200 m spans.
The increase on span required lighter and more
resistant deck cross-sections. Steel decks adopting
box-girder cross-sections made by orthotropic pan-
els are suitable for very long spans. For cable-stayed
bridges with spans up to 600 m, and possibly to 700 m,
composite steel-concrete decks may be considered as
the most efficient and competitive solution, as con-
firmed by the variety of composite steel-concrete
decks built in the last years (Fig. 1).1,2,3,4
slab. Deck slenderness, defined as the length/depth
ratio of the main span, has been very much increased.
Modern designs adopt thin and lighter decks, induc-
ing savings in the deck, cables, piers and foundations.
Field bolted splices provided fast and simple con-
nections between almost identical modules, ensuring
maximum repetition of pre-fabricated deck compo-
nents and construction procedures.3 These concepts
have been applied to the majority of composite cable-
stayed bridges with main-spans exceeding 200 m, built
over the last twenty years by the balanced cantilever
construction method.

1.1 Design of long-span roadway bridges

Modern long-span composite decks adopted a simple
deck (Fig. 2). Reducing the space between stay-cables,
slender lateral main girders directly suspended by
closely spaced cables, were feasible. Closely spaced

Figure 2. Typical composite cable-stayed decks: a) steel

section detail and b) concrete slab executed with precast
Figure 1. Composite cable-stayed span length evolution.6 panels.5

729
Figure 3. Deck slenderness (main-span length/deck depth)
vs. main-span length, for composite cable-stayed bridges.6
Figure 4. a) Deck steel weight ratio and b) deck self-weight
ratio, per square meter of the deck, vs. main-span length.6
The study of the main features of road and railway
composite cable-stayed bridges built all over the world
led to some significant conclusions.6 With respect to
the deck slenderness (Fig. 3):
• For roadway girder decks, values grow up from 75 to
225 with the increasing on span length; slenderness
tends to be approximately constant for spans over
500 m long;
• Out of this range, the four-girder deck of the Ting
Kau Bridge has a very high slenderness of 271.
• Slenderness of railway decks is much lower, with
typical values below 50, due to deformability
restrictions imposed by functional requirements.
With respect to the deck self-weight:
• The structural steel weight ratio per square meter of
the deck is between 125 kg/m2 and 300 kg/m2 , with
an average value of 213 kg/m2 (Fig. 4a);
• The average deck self-weight ratio per square meter
of the deck is 850 kg/m2 (considering the weight of
the structural steel and of the concrete slab), and typ-
ical values are between 700 kg/m2 and 1000 kg/m2
(Fig. 4b).
With respect to the stay-cables steel weight:
• steel weight ratio of the stays per square meter of the
deck increases with the main-span length, accord-
ing with the boundaries of stay-cables catalogues7
730
Figure 5. Cables steel weight ratio per square meter of
the deck vs. a) main-span length; b) equivalent main-span
length.6
for steel, composite and concrete cable-stayed decks
(Fig. 5a);
• Plotting in the same graphic the steel weight of the
stays per deck square meter, for the composite cable-
stayed bridges, results are quite dispersed;
• Railroad decks present always stay’s weight ratio
much higher than the values recorded for road decks,
due to greater deck dead and live loads;
• Assuming a equivalent main-span length for road
bridges with an asymmetrical single tower equal
to twice the real main-span length (Fig. 5b) stay’s
steel weight ratios per deck square meter are much
better fit;
• A quadratic trend-line is almost over the average
line proposed for composite decks with long spans
in the stay-cables catalogues7 (Fig 5b).
1.2 Design of medium-span roadway bridges
For spans up to 250 m, cable-stayed bridges compete
with box-girder bridges and arch bridges, and they
are rarely economical for these spans lengths. How-
ever, a cable-stayed bridge with slender deck may be
desirable in an urban environment for aesthetics or due
to difficulties of positioning the deck supports. These
aspects may favour the cable-stayed solution, not only
in the transposition of rivers and canals, but also on
very wide road and railways. Other factors supporting
a cable-stayed solution are: 1) aesthetic due to trans-
parency of the structure, resulting from the reduction
on the number of piers and increased slenderness of
the deck, and 2) reduction the traffic constraints during
the execution.
Figure 6. Seyssel Bridge, France.10 .
Figure 7. Arena Viaduct, Spain.11 .

For medium-spans the usual symmetric cable-

stayed layout with a three-span straight deck and two
towers, is not very often the best solution. Asymmet-
ric solutions with a single tower or with a curved
deck may be more appropriate to overcome local and
environment constraints.8
Design of medium-span composite cable-stayed
bridges has allowed simple deck solutions erected by
fast construction methods, like decks composed by two
plate girders lateral suspended. The concrete slab on
the top is still supported by closed spaced floor-beams,
like the Saint-Maurice Bridge (Switzerland, 1986) and
the Seyssel Bridge (France, 1987, Fig. 6). Built in the
end of the eighties, these two bridges have a struc-
tural asymmetric layout. The first bridge consisting of
two decks located at the exit of tunnels, with the tow-
ers built over the tunnels and suspending 99 m long
spans, with two planes of three stays, 24 m apart at the
deck level.9 The second bridge has a more classical Figure 8. Alzette River Bridge, Luxemburg.12 .
configuration, with a single tower suspending a 115 m
long main-span and three side spans of 35.2 m, with bridges incremental launching or erection by cranes
two plans of nine stays at each side.10 and temporary supports has been used, as in the
Decks with lateral suspension have nevertheless a Seyssel and Alzette River Bridges; the steel decks were
major drawback, due to the visual impact of two plans launched using temporary supports, and the slabs were
of stays. The axial suspension of the deck improves casted-in-place using mobile formworks supported on
aesthetics but requires a deck with higher torsional the steel structures.
rigidity, namely a box-girder cross-section. The Arena A special reference should also be made to sev-
Viaduct11 (Spain, 1993, Fig. 7), with five 105 m inner eral medium-span cable-stayed bridges built by the
spans, and the Alzette River Bridge12 (Luxembourg, incremental launching method in Finland, as the Täh-
1994, Fig. 8), with two side spans 130 m long, are tiniemi and Utsjoki Bridges, with main-spans of 165 m
good examples of medium-span cable-stayed bridges 155 m. The same method was used in the particular
in an in-plan curved road alignment, with an axial asymmetric Kemijoki Bridge (Fig. 9) with a compos-
suspension. ite box-girder deck with inclined struts supporting the
The Arena cable-stayed deck was built using an cantilevers, and a 126 m main-span suspended by two
unusual method. Each span was fully executed on the axial plans of stays.13
ground, including concreting the slab, and raised up
to a height of 30 m by lifting deck segments of around
1.3 Design of composite cable-stayed truss decks
2600 tons. Each span was then welded to the previous
one. Only after erecting all the deck, the steel masts The design of cable-stayed bridges with composite
were put in place and the six axial stays were installed truss decks allows superstructures to be lighter than
on each side of the masts.11 traditional prestressed concrete box-girders and less
Balanced cantilever construction method leads nor- deformable than steel or composite plate girder decks.
mally to longer construction time. For medium-span By anchoring the stays at the top slab level, the

731
Figure 9. Kemijoki Bridge, Finland.13 .
Figure 10. Karnali Bridge, Nepal.14
stays horizontal compression component is transmit-
ted directly to the slab, since the truss girders are
relatively flexible in the longitudinal direction com-
pared to the axial rigidity of the slab. This feature of
the deck is actually important for a composite deck,
since it reduces the effects of shrinkage and creep
of the concrete slab, as in the longitudinal direction
each lattice girder acts as a “harmonium”, allowing
the deformations and reducing internal forces due to
time dependent effects.
Karnali Bridge 14 (Nepal, 1993, Fig. 10) was the
first cable-stayed road bridge with a composite truss
deck. This outstanding structure has a 325 m lateral
span, suspended by a single tower (deck slenderness
approximately 100). To reduce deck deformability two
lattices Warren girders 3 m deep were adopted.14
For rail and railroad bridges, a stiff deck is needed
to ensure train’s operation requirements. Truss girder
decks are widely adopted in suspension bridges and
in some cable-stayed bridges. In particular, composite
steel-concrete truss decks combine high stiffness with
relative low weight, using the concrete slabs to pro-
vide the proper circulation platforms. Composite truss
decks were adopted in the Øresund Bridge (between
Sweden and Denmark, 2000, Fig. 11), and more
732
Figure 11. Øresund Bridge, Sweden/Denmark.15
recently in the Mercosur Bridge, over the Orinoco
River (Venezuela, 2011).
The 490 m span Øresund Bridge,15 adopted a deck
with two vertical steel trusses, with a concrete slab on
the top for the roadway. At the bottom level, a contin-
uous orthotropic steel deck supports two ballast boxes
for high-speed lines. The construction used deck steel
segments pre-fabricated in Spain and transported by
ship to Sweden, where the slab was pre-casted. Han-
dling operations of these elements, 120 m to 140 m
long, and weighting up to 6200 tons, were carried out
with a crane mounted on a barge. Deck segments
were placed on temporary supports and welded. Later,
the stays were installed and temporary supports were
removed to new positions.16
The 360 m long span Mercosur railroad Bridge17
adopted also a composite steel-concrete Warren truss
girder deck, with 10 m between truss joints, and upper
and lower cross-beams 3.33 m apart. However, unlike
the other examples, axial suspension was adopted, with
two planes of stay-cables 0.80 m apart, and the deck
steel framing of the side spans were erected by incre-
mental launching. Afterwards, the concrete slab was
casted in place and stays were installed and tensioned.
The 120 m steel central part of the main-span, weight-
ing 2400 tons, was then lifted from a barge by four
strand jacks located on the existing cantilevers. The
main-span slab was finally poured in several steps.17
These two decks are relatively deep, with steel struc-
tures 10.2 m and 11.6 m height, which correspond to
slenderness of only 48 and 28. Additionally, the self-
weight and structural steel of these decks are higher
than the values for double plate girder road composite
decks (Fig. 4a).
But, all these bridges adopted longitudinal trusses
with vertical diagonals. Three-dimensional tubular
diagonals can also be used, as it was first done in
the Europa Bridge18 (Portugal, 2004, Fig. 12). This
highway deck, with a 186 m long main-span, is axially
suspended by two plans of stays fixed to a single mast

Figure 12. Europa Bridge, Portugal.18 .
located on the left bank of the river. The mast inclined
8◦ towards the side spans is retained by two layers
of backstays externally anchored to the transition pier
blocks. The specificity of this composite deck truss,
with steel tube diagonals, comes not only from the steel
elements joints to the concrete slabs, but also from
shear deformability and effects of local concentrated
bending moments introduced on the slab at the joints.
The deck is a 3D composite truss 4.2 m deep and 30 m
wide, made of high strength steel tubes with joints
spaced at 3.75 m, and two concrete slabs prestressed
in the transversal and longitudinal directions.
Steel plates enclosed by reinforced concrete were
used at the upper truss nodes. These plates not only
transfer the vertical forces from the slabs, but also
balance the forces between the diagonal tubes that con-
verge on the node, and transmit the horizontal forces to
the concrete slabs. On the lower node between 3.75 m
long segments, two “teeth” plates were used, perfectly
matched to each other, to ensure the direct transmis-
sion of vertical and horizontal internal forces. The
bridge deck was designed to be executed with pre-
cast segments with the pre-casting yard located on the
left bank, and the precast segments (3.75 m length),
weighing up to 150 tons, transported in the river by
a barge, were lifted vertically to the deck. After deck
assembling and longitudinal prestressing applied, the
overhangs of the deck slab were cast in-place and a
second phase of transversal pre-stressing was applied.
2 FUTURE TRENDS
2.1 In the field of materials
The use of precast slab panels with concrete strengths
up to 70 to 100 MPa is gradually increasing for very
long-span composite cable-stayed bridges. To reduce
weight ribbed slab sections between floor-beams have
been recently adopted.1 Lightweight aggregate con-
crete (LWAC) was also used in at least one composite
cable-stayed deck. The Grenland Bridge (Norway,
1996) adopted slabs of LWAC in the 305 m long
main-span.19
733
The use of steel grades S420 and S460 has much
increased in recent years. New steels allow the design
of steel girders, floor-beams and stay anchors more
compact and with thinner plates. However, the use of
these steels has no significant advantage for fatigue
resistance. The recent introduction of even higher steel
grades in bridge construction, such as the S690 and
S700, may be explored in the future.20
2.2 In the field of cables
Cables made of CFRP have been proposed to reduce
weight and diameter, as they combine very high
resistance with a self-weight lower than steel. How-
ever, their time dependant behaviour is still not well
known, axial deformability is much higher, and CFRP
stay-cables are costly compared to steel stays.
Cable forces in service are usually limited to 45%
of its ultimate guaranteed resistant strength (FGUT).
Few solid justifications have been given to continue
using this limit, imposed to prevent the negative con-
sequences of the fatigue stresses, and the local bending
stresses in the anchorage of the first large-diameter
stay-cables. For a characteristic combination of loads,
the Eurocode 3, part 1-11 allows cable forces up to 50%
of FGUT, if vibration damping devices are adopted
at anchorages. In addition, during cables installation,
the first strands may have installed forces up to 60%
FGUT, provided after stressing the remaining strands
of a cable work in the limit of 55% FGUT.
The assessment of stay-cable fatigue stresses needs
also to be carried out for the service conditions (con-
sidering both the axial stresses and the bending stresses
near the anchorages, due to angular deviations caused
by catenary effects, wind forces and erection imper-
fections). The French recommendations21 propose a
simple method valid for road bridges, limiting the
cables axial stress variation to 70 MPa for the passage
of the fatigue vehicle LM3 of the Eurocode 1-Part 2.
2.3 In the field of design
In the field of design of composite steel-concrete
cable-stayed bridges several new solutions have been
recorded over the years, in some cases only with
architectural aspects, but in other cases technically
innovative. Both types of developments are important,
since the public interest in cable-stayed bridges is, to
a large extent, also a result of its high aesthetics qual-
ity. The recent Boyne and Suir River Bridges (Ireland,
2003 and 2009), Sirhowy River Bridge (Wales, 2005),
Berliner Bridge (Germany, 2005), Alcide de Gasperi
Bridge (Italy, 2005) and Korabelny Bridge (Russia,
2011), are good examples of medium-span compos-
ite cable-stayed bridges, following these principles.
New bridges of the same type, such as the Signature
Bridge (India, 2014), are under construction or being
designed.
In the field of rail and railroad decks, compos-
ite solutions can also play an important role. In the
future, this is certainly an area of composite cable-
stayed bridge developments, as shown by the recent

Figure 13. Preview of the Third Tagus River Crossing
Bridge, in Lisbon.22,23 .
Figure 14. Preview of the Femern Belt Bridge, between
Germany and Denmark.24 .
studies for the Third Tagus River Crossing Bridge in
Lisbon22,23 (Fig. 13), as well for the bridge connecting
the Fehmern Belt 24 between Germany and Denmark
(Fig. 14).
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