Probabilistic determination of initial cable forces of cable-stayed bridges under dead loads

Abstract

This paper presents an improved Monte Carlo simulation for the probabilistic determination of initial cable forces of cable-stayed bridges under dead loads using the response surfaces method. A response surface (i.e. a quadratic response surface without cross-terms) is used to approximate structural response. The use of the response surface eliminates the need to perform a deterministic analysis in each simulation loop. In addition, use of the response surface requires fewer simulation loops than conventional Monte Carlo simulation. Thereby, the computation time is saved significantly. The statistics (e.g. mean value, standard deviation) of the structural response are calculated through conventional Monte Carlo simulation method. By using Monte Carlo simulation, it is possible to use the existing deterministic finite element code without modifying it. Probabilistic analysis of a truss demonstrates the proposed method' efficiency and accuracy; probabilistic determination of initial cable forces of a cable-stayed bridge under dead loads verifies the method's applicability.