Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY A-MATHEMATICAL PHYSICAL AND ENGINEERING SCIENCES
Volume 474, Issue 2217, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2017.0726
Keywords
bridges; catenary of equal strength; structural optimization; layout optimization
Categories
Funding
- University of Sheffield
- UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- Expedition Engineering Ltd, London, UK
- EPSRC [EP/N023471/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Long-span bridges have traditionally employed suspension or cable-staved forms, comprising vertical pylons and networks of cables supporting a bridge deck. However, the optimality of such forms over very long spans appears never to have been rigorously assessed, and the theoretically optimal form for a given span carrying gravity loading has remained unknown. To address this we here describe a new numerical layout optimization procedure capable of intrinsically modelling the self-weight of the constituent structural elements, and use this to identify the form requiring the minimum volume of material for a given span. The bridge forms identified are complex and differ markedly to traditional suspension and cable-stayed bridge forms. Simplified variants incorporating split pylons are also presented. Although these would still be challenging to construct in practice, a benefit is that they are capable of spanning much greater distances for a given volume of material than traditional suspension and cable-stayed forms employing vertical pylons, particularly when very long spans (e.g. over 2 km) are involved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available