Ultimate load carrying capacity of the Lu Pu steel arch bridge under static wind loads

This paper investigates the ultimate load carrying capacity of the Lu Pu Bridge under static wind loads through the spatial finite element model. Both geometric and material nonlinearities are involved in the analysis. The Lu Pu Bridge is a long-span half-through-type steel arch bridge with a 550 m-long central span under construction in Shanghai, China. This will be the longest central span of any arch bridge in the world. Three load combinations are used in the ultimate load capacity analysis of the bridge. Combination I: combined dead and live loads over the entire bridge. Combination II: combined dead and wind loads. Combination III: combined dead load, wind load and live load over the entire bridge. Ultimate load capacity of the bridge is first investigated under load combinations I and II. Attention is paid mainly to investigate the load capacity of the bridge under load combination III. In the case of load combination III, the influences of several parameters (i.e., loading sequence, three components of wind loads and wind loads of individual bridge element) on the ultimate load capacity of the bridge are discussed. It is concluded that wind loads result in significant reduction in the ultimate load capacity when applied wind loads become large.