An improved continuum model for determining the behavior of suspension bridges during construction

Abstract

Large deformation can be involved in the construction of suspension bridges, and thus the geometry nonlinearity plays an important role in this process. The available continuum model, which is based on the so called “deflection theory”, is proved to be inaccurate in the condition with high geometry nonlinearity. This paper proposes an improved continuum model based on the principle of complementary energy and variational calculus, and the weighted residual approach together with the nonlinear adjustment optimization is proposed to numerically solve the continuum model. The result comparisons among the finite element method, deflection theory and the improved model confirm that the proposed improved model can achieve the higher accuracy than the deflection theory. Also, the following parameter analyses indicate the improved model has considerable stability and applicability to the suspension bridge in a wide range.