American Society of Civil

Engineers (ASCE)

Time-Progressive Dynamic
Assessment of Abrupt
Cable-Breakage Events on CableStayed Bridges
Yufen Zhou and Suren Chen
Presenter: Khawaja Ali
Structural Engineering
Laboratory
Yokohama National University,
Japan

Abstract
Although long-span bridges are usually
designed with sufficient structural
redundancy, particular concerns arise about
the abrupt breakage of bridge cables, which
may cause progressive failure such as
zipper-like collapse (Starossek 2007)
The time-progressive nonlinear dynamic
analysis approach is proposed to investigate
the abrupt cable-breakage event of a cablestayed bridge.
2

Introduction
Like other civil structures, long-span bridges experience
increasing risk of progressive failure subject to some
hazardous loading scenarios.
As the primary guideline for the design of bridge cables in
the United States, the Post-Tensioning Institute (PTI) issued
recommendations for stay cable design, testing, and
installation (PTI 2007).
The recommendations provide two load application methods
to quantify the dynamic effects due to the loss of cable:
one is the pseudodynamic method, in which the
equivalent static analysis is performed with a pair of
impact pseudodynamic forces, resulting from 2.0 times
the static forces, applied at the top and the bottom
anchorage locations of the ruptured cable
the other is nonlinear dynamic analysis, in which the
dynamic cable forces due to the cable breakage are
3
applied.

Introduction
Compared with the pseudo-dynamic analysis focusing on the maximum
responses during the whole process of the abrupt loss of a cable,
nonlinear dynamic analysis can provide more detailed and accurate
information throughout the cable-breakage process.
As a relatively new area, nonlinear dynamic analysis of cable breakage
has been the subject of a few studies in recent years..
Cable-breakage events on cable-stayed bridges, either accidental or
intentional, can happen at any time when the bridge is vibrating from
the excitation of stochastic traffic.
The dynamic impact on the bridge from the cable-breakage event,
particularly the local performance of the connecting nodes of the
ruptured cable, is usually critical.
Rational traffic loads are thus important to provide more accurate
information about the performance at those critical locations on longspan bridges before, during, and after the cable-breakage event
This paper proposes the time-progressive nonlinear dynamic analysis
methodology based on SAP2000 15.0.0 to investigate the performance
of a cable-stayed bridge subjected to abrupt cable breakage in the time
domain.
4

Nonlinear Dynamic Simulation

Methodology with
Stochastic Traffic Loads

1.1 Stochastic Traffic Loads

Considering BridgeTraffic Interactions
To rationally simulate the moving traffic on long-span
bridges, the stochastic traffic flow in this study is simulated
with the cellular automaton (CA) traffic simulation model.
With the data generated from the CA-based traffic flow
simulation, the information of each vehicle, including
vehicle speed and location at each time step, are gathered
to obtain the R values corresponding to each vehicle at
different time instants as well as the corresponding
locations.
The total wheel load for each vehicle in the stochastic
traffic flow can be defined as the summation of the
dynamic wheel load and the vehicle gravity load, as
defined in Eq. (1) (Chen and Cai 2007):

1.2. Selection of Time-Domain Simulation

Approach for the Cable-Breakage Event
To simulate the cable
breakage scenario with
SAP2000, two modeling
procedures could be
adopted
1. Modeling with the
breaking cable remaining
on the bridge model; and
2. Modeling with the
breaking cable removed
from the bridge model.

1.3. Scope of the study and assumptions

1. Dynamic loads considered in study
Busy Traffic and Cable breakage at the same time. No wind load

2. Cable breakage duration

When a cable is ruptured abruptly, the tension force in the cable is lost
over a very short period of time. Mozos and Aparicio(2010) applied
0.005s as rupture time of 7-wire steel strand of 0.6in. In this study,
0.01s is considered which is same as time step for numerical
integration method

3. Single cable breakage and corresponding initial states

PTI recommends all cable stayed bridges should withstand sudden loss
of one cable without reaching any limit states. This study is about one
cable breakage event. And dynamic initial states with non-zero velocity
and acceleration were considered, caused by stochastic traffic in time
domain.

4. Time duration of the simulation

To provide accurate dynamic initial conditions of cable breakage event,
time duration is taken as from t1 to (t1+0.01) to finally t2. Traffic still
remains on the bridge after cable breakage for t2 which is related to
perception delay of vehicle drivers (Usually take 3-7 s).
8

1.4. Time-Progressive Dynamic Simulation

Strategy of Cable Breakage with Dynamic
Initial States
The nonlinear dynamic analysis of the whole process
in the time domain consists of three time durations:
In the first duration of the process, the dynamic
vibration on the undamaged bridge system is performed
for a time period of t1 s under busy stochastic traffic
flow;
The second duration refers to the rupture time of 0.01 s,
during which the cable has an abrupt breakage;
In the third duration, the dynamic vibration is carried out
on the damaged bridge system, which starts at the time
of (t1+0:01) s just after the sudden loss of a single cable
and lasts for a time duration of t2 s.

The simulation steps for both the force generation and

the breakage simulation stages are introduced as
shown in next slide

10

Numerical Example and

Discussion

11

2.1. Bridge System

1. Main twin box girder, cross girder and A-shaped towers are
modeled using frame elements
2. Stay cables are modeled as cable elements

12

2.2. Validation of Procedure 2 Adopted

in Time-Domain Analysis
Comparison results in terms of the vertical
displacement at the girder node connecting Cable 1
(the ruptured cable) from the following three cases:
Dynamic simulation of undamaged
bridge system under busy dynamic
traffic flow without the occurrence of
cable breakage;
Dynamic simulation of abrupt
breakage of Cable 1 with the
presence of busy traffic loads using
Procedure 1; and
Dynamic simulation of abrupt
breakage of Cable 1 with the
presence of busy traffic loads using
Procedure 2.
Procedure2 is adopted in the
simulation

13

2.3. Influence of Different Dynamic

Breakage Initial States
The vertical
displacements at the
connecting girder joint
of Cable 1 starting with
five different dynamic
breakage initial states
are compared in Fig. 5

The time histories of the post breakage

response on the modified bridge with
different initial breakage states are
transformed to the spectral domain with
Fourier transformation functions.
Fig. 7 also clearly shows that the vibrations
corresponding to the frequencies of the first
and second vertical modes are both heavily
excited in the breakage event starting at

14

2.4. Evaluation of Nonlinearity Involved

in the Analysis (1)
In the process of progressive collapse analysis of a cablestayed bridge, nonlinear analysis often becomes essential
for both static and dynamic analyses as a result of the
following reasons:
Large strains beyond the elastic limit may be triggered in the
collapse process. The material will then enter the plastic range
and behave nonlinearly.
Geometric nonlinearity should not be ignored for cable elements
considering the fact that cables are highly nonlinear and that
the cable sag effect under its own self-weight results in
nonlinear axial stiffness.
The interaction between the axial and flexural deformations in
bending members should not be ignored because large stresses
may be present in a structure and result in significantly different
structural matrix formulations.
15

2.4. Evaluation of Nonlinearity Involved

in the Analysis (2)
Two main sources of nonlinearity are considered:
Material Nonlinearity
o To evaluate the effects due to material non-linearity,
the nonlinear dynamic response of the bridge model
with hinges at the frame ends is compared with that
of the bridge model without hinges in the loss
scenario of cable1.
Geometric Nonlinearity
o The consideration of both sources of geometric
nonlinearity generates a larger response, should be
considered in process.

16

2.5. Bridge Performance Subjected to Various

Abrupt SingleCable Breakage Scenarios

Fig. 10. (a) Time-history

response of the girder node
connecting to the ruptured
Cable 2; (b) time-history
response of the girder node
connecting to

Fig. 11. (a) Time-history response

of the girder nodes connecting to
the ruptured Cable 4; (b) timehistory response of the girder
nodes connecting to
the ruptured Cable 5

17

2.6. Response Envelope Analysis

As recommended by PTI, the structural response of a cablestayed bridge upon abrupt breakage of a single cable can be
obtained from either a nonlinear dynamic approach or a
nonlinear
pseudo-dynamic
For the nonlinear
pseudo-approach.
dynamic approach, the
impact dynamic force from
the loss of a cable shall be
equal to a dynamic
amplification factor (DAF) of
2.0 times the static
force before the cable
breakage occurs.

18

2.7. Conclusion

According to the comparative study, the proposed time

progressive analysis methodology using Procedure 2 can
provide reasonable predictions of the bridge response before,
during, and after the cable-breakage event.
The studies show that the dynamic initial states can provide
more comprehensive and detailed information about the
impact from the cable-breakage event on the bridge response
than the traditional static initial states.
The comparative study shows that to consider traffic loads
during cable-rupture events is necessary. Depending on the
instant when the cable breakage occurs, the stochastic traffic
load may cause larger bridge response than that from the
static traffic load, which could control the design of the cablebreakage event.
It was found that material nonlinearity in the cables and frames
is not significant, and progressive collapse will not occur after
the single-cable breakage scenario for the bridge being
19
studied. However, geometric nonlinearity needs to be

Thanks for listening

20