The effect of cable loosening on seismic response of a prestressed concrete cable-stayed bridge

In conventional non-linear seismic analyses of cable-stayed bridges, the non-linear characteristics of the girders, stay cables and towers are considered. The non-linearity caused by cable loosening should also be considered because a large axial force fluctuation is generated in the cables of a prestressed concrete (PC) cable-stayed bridge that is subjected to strong seismic motion. In this paper, the possibility of the cable loosening in a PC cable-stayed bridge is discussed by using a cable model that can express the cable loosening. Furthermore, the effect of the cable loosening on the responses of the cables, girder and towers is evaluated using the mean value for three seismic waves. Numerical analytic results imply that the cable loosening appears in the bottom cables of the multi-cable system and the dynamic response of the bridge is slightly increased.