An evaluation system for determining the stress redistribution of a steel cable-stayed bridge due to cable stress relaxation at various temperatures

This study developed an evaluation system to explore the effect of the environmental temperature on the stress redistribution produced by cable stress relaxation of structural members in a steel cable-stayed bridge. The generalized Maxwell model is used to estimate stress relaxation at different temperatures. The environmental temperature is represented using the thermal coefficients and temperature loads. The fmincon optimization function is used to determine the set of stress relaxation parameters at different temperatures for all cables. The ABAQUS software is employed to investigate the stress redistribution of the steel cable-stayed bridge caused by the cable stress relaxation and the environmental temperature. All of these steps are set up as an evaluation system to save time and ensure the accuracy of the study results. The developed evaluation system is then employed to investigate the effect of environmental temperature and cable type on stress redistribution. These studies' findings show that as environmental temperatures increased up to 40 oC, the redistribution rate increased by up to 34.9% in some girders. The results also show that the cable type with low relaxation rates should be used in high environmental temperature areas to minimize the effect of cable stress relaxation.